Marvel has had a headstart on Warner Bros/DC in the box office since it started the superhero genre series with “Iron Man” back in 2012 and has built on its gains ever since. Marvel has had a string of box office as a result. But with the impending entry of the DC Comics characters in the superhero films, things will definitely change.
It is possible that by the time that 2020 comes, viewers would have had enough of practically quarterly servings of superhero movies that most have already lost appetite for it. The law of supply and demand also applies to box-office after all.
While Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark / Iron Man is the most bankable among the Avengers superheroes, he is also the most expensive and it is possible that if he finally agrees to do “Iron Man 4” around 2019, his asking price might be not less than $150 million.
But Marvel Studios and its parent company Disney Pictures shall have no problem meeting the asking price of RDJ since practically all their movies with Iron Man on it make lots of money. In fact, three Marvel movies that are on the list of the Top 10 highest grossing movies of all time had Iron Man on it including “Marvel’s The Avengers,” “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” and “Iron Man 3.”
Of those three movies, Robert Downey Jr. was paid $80 million for “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” $50 million for “Iron Man 3,” and a little less for “Marvel’s The Avengers.”