Marvel boss Kevin Feige reveals the first time he told Robert Downey Jr about Tony Stark’s death
Kevin Feige has revealed that he first told Robert Downey Jr about Tony Stark’s endgame many years ago.
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has said that he first told Robert Downey Jr about his character, Tony Stark’s eventual death many years ago. Feige was speaking to Empire magazine on the heels of Avengers: Endgame’s digital release. Stark dies in the blockbuster Marvel superhero movie, after first appearing in the MCU in 2008.
“I remember pitching that to Robert Downey Jr. probably in December of 2015, I think,” Feige said. “I pitched him the idea of the two-part finale for Avengers and Spider-Man: Homecoming, which was a part of that leading into it. It took a little while, but eventually it came together. I think at first it doesn’t seem real that this journey will come to an end. But as it got closer to filming, it really was emotional for all of us, and particularly for him.”
In 2015, Marvel was on the cusp of releasing Captain America: Civil War, which would feature Tony Stark in a significant role. The character returned in Spider-Man: Homecoming, and the final two Avengers films.
Interestingly, Downey Jr filmed his final shot as Stark just a few hundred feet away from where he first auditioned for the role. “Robert Downey Jr.’s final shot that he filmed for Avengers: Endgame (that snap) was filmed at the same studio location that he first auditioned as Tony Stark,” Feige said.
In an earlier interview, directors Joe and Anthony Russo had also spoken about how the ‘I am Iron Man’ moment was a last minute addition, and that Downey Jr had to be convinced to return to film the shot.
“What we always traditionally do is, we have friends and family screenings,” Joe Russo said. “We collect our ideas and go back and try to do very targeted reshoots...The last thing that we got was Robert saying, ‘I am Iron Man,’ and snapping his fingers. That was the very last shot on the last day. What’s interesting about this story is we’re in the edit room for months with that scene. We were like, ‘How do you give Tony Stark a a last line that has any resonance?’ We tried a few thing sand they just weren’t working. They felt flat to us...We’re sitting in editorial with our editor Jeff Ford...he said, ‘What if he says, ‘I am Iron Man in response to I am inevitable?’ If felt like it was written that way.”
