‘Iron Man 4’ Re-Cast May Be Considered by Marvel Studios If It is Too Far Down the Road!

Marvel Studios has come out with a release date calendar for its 14 upcoming movies from 2016 to 2020. The list actually indicates that the earliest that an “Iron Man 4” movie could come out on theaters is in 2020. However, since Marvel Studios has not confirmed anything at all about “Iron Man 4,” everything about the film is still speculation at this time.

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 in the vicinity of $150 million or more.

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 made tons 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.”

In 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.”

He will be appearing again as Tony Stark / Iron Man in the upcoming Marvel movie “Captain America: Civil War” due to hit theaters on May 6, 2016 and it would not be surprising if the film breaks into the list of the Top 10 highest grossing movies of all time. Robert Downey Jr. is being paid $40 million for the third movie of the Captain America trilogy.

A good business decision

From a business perspective, having an “Iron Man 4” will be good for Marvel Studios since it is definitely going to be a blockbuster success.

But the production outfit will have to grapple with a lot of factors before they even consider doing it as part of Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The first one is the fact that although “Iron Man 3” was a blockbuster, the storyline was not as good as many fans and critics hoped it to be. As such, Marvel needs to come up with a perfect plotline to make it really good as anything less will most likely be its biggest undoing in the MCU.

In the event that Marvel decides to do an “Iron Man 4,” the company shall be eventually obligated to do a fourth movie for all the other characters that it has presented in the MCU. While it is good for future expansion of the MCU, fans can only take so much of superhero stuff in a given number of years. A little too much would really make the genre stale.

And then there is the age factor. If Marvel decides to do an “Iron Man 4,” and it shall be made too far down the road, the chances of the company doing a re-cast would be very high. Of course, a 43-year-old Robert Downey Jr. is quite different from a 53-year-old one. While CGI can still be utilized, if necessary, the reality is that actors do age and slow down too. Not unless they have the same physique and discipline as Sylvester Stallone.

Possible replacement

Disney and Marvel Studios are no strangers to re-casting. In fact, they have previously done it with the character of James Rhodes a.k.a. War Machine in “Iron Man 2.” Terence Howard has been replaced by Don Cheadle after “Iron Man,” details the Inquisitr.

They have also done it with the character of Bruce Banner. It was supposed to be taken on by Edward Norton again but they gave it to Mark Ruffalo beginning with “Marvel’s The Avengers.”

The Australia Network News has enumerated five possible replacements for Robert Downey Jr. in the event that Marvel Studios decides to do a re-cast for the Tony Stark / Iron Man character and those who made it to the list include the 14-year-old actor Ty Simpkins, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jon Hamm, Colin Farrell, and Luke Evans.