“Avengers: Endgame”
Jon Favreau wanted to keep Iron Man alive
Robert Downey Jr. in Jon Favreau’s “Iron Man”.
© imago/ZUMA Press
“Iron Man” director Jon Favreau wanted to save the character with whom he founded Marvel’s cinematic universe from dying in “Avengers: Endgame”.
The death of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr., 57) shocked Marvel fans in “Avengers: Endgame”. If Jon Favreau (55) had had his way, it would never have come to this. The director of the first two “Iron Man” solo films wanted to prevent the death of the character. On the phone, he tried to convince “Endgame” directors Joe (51) and Anthony Russo (52) of Iron Man’s survival. The Russo brothers revealed that now opposite “Variety”.
Jon Favreau, who also acted in “Avengers-Endgame”, had read the script of the last part of the superhero saga. Upon encountering Iron Man’s death, he called the Russos. “I remember pacing in the corner of the stage and on the phone with Favreau, who tried to talk me out of it,” said Joe Russo.
“It will blow people’s minds. They will run into traffic”
“You can’t do that,” Favreau said. “It’s going to blow people away, and you don’t want them walking out of the cinema into the middle of the traffic.”
But the man who founded the Marvel Cinematic Universe with “Iron Man” in 2008 was not able to assert himself. Big industrialist Tony Stark, who fought evil as Iron Man, fell in the final battle against super villain Thanos. A heroic death after a fulfilling life, like the “Avengers” authors Christopher Markus (52) and Stephen McFeely (52) already held on to the theatrical release in 2019.