It’s almost strange to watch Iron Man now and think about how Iron Man helped start the MCU, especially when you remember how little there was to keep track of back then.
There was Tony Stark. There was the suit. And if you stuck around after the credits, Samuel L. Jackson showed up as Nick Fury and mentioned something called the “Avenger Initiative.” That was about it.
Nobody watching the movie in 2008 knew exactly where any of this was going, including Robert Downey Jr., who was taking on a character that would eventually change his career and become the face of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Now there’s another reason to go back to the beginning.
This December, Downey returns to the MCU in Avengers: Doomsday, but Tony Stark isn’t coming with him. Instead, the actor who spent more than a decade playing Iron Man will play Victor von Doom. That’s quite a change from where all of this started.
Iron Man started the MCU before anyone knew what the MCU would become
Iron Man opened in theaters May 2, 2008, and introduced audiences to Tony Stark, a billionaire weapons manufacturer who gets a very unpleasant look at what his own creations can do.
After being captured and ordered to build a weapon, Stark secretly builds something else: the first version of the Iron Man armor. He escapes, returns home and begins looking at his company and his own life a little differently. It worked, and audiences embraced the movie and, just as importantly, embraced Downey as Tony Stark. Marvel suddenly had something it could build on.
Nick Fury’s appearance after the credits offered the first real tease of what might be coming. Eventually there would be The Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, along with all the other movies and characters that filled in the universe around them. But none of that existed yet when Downey was making Iron Man.
Robert Downey Jr. had to trust the people making Iron Man
We actually spoke with Robert Downey Jr. before Iron Man was released, when nobody yet knew what the movie was about to start. There was no Marvel empire to look back on, and there wasn’t even a guarantee audiences were going to embrace Tony Stark. Downey was simply trying to make the first movie work, and that required a certain amount of faith.
Playing Iron Man meant Downey had to believe in things that weren’t always there while he was performing. The finished armor, visual effects and technology audiences would eventually see on screen had to be put together around what the actors were doing.
Downey told us that one of the biggest parts of preparing for the movie was trusting the filmmakers and believing they knew what the finished product was supposed to look like.
Click on the media bar below to hear Robert Downey Jr.
Hearing him talk about it now is fun because we know the rest of the story. Iron Man worked, Tony Stark came back again and again, and Downey stayed with the character all the way through Avengers: Endgame. The MCU got a whole lot more complicated along the way.
Avengers: Doomsday brings Robert Downey Jr. back
Now Downey is coming back to the universe he helped get started, except he isn’t returning as Tony Stark. He’s playing Doctor Doom.
Avengers: Doomsday arrives in theaters December 18, with Anthony and Joe Russo directing and characters from across the Marvel universe coming together for the next Avengers movie.
It’s hard to imagine anybody watching Iron Man back in 2008 predicting that the same actor would return almost 19 years later as Victor von Doom. Then again, nobody knew Iron Man was going to lead to all of this either.
That’s what makes the first movie fun to revisit now. Strip away everything Marvel added over the years and you’re back with Tony Stark trying to get out of a cave in a suit he built from scraps. The universe came later.
Avengers: Doomsday opens in theaters December 18. Iron Man is currently streaming on Disney+ and is also available on DVD, Blu-ray, digital platforms and to rent or purchase on Amazon.
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