Sad news for Tony Stark fans.
While promoting his new film "The Judge" at the Toronto Film Festival, Robert Downey Jr. has revealed that a fourth installment to Marvel's "Iron Man" franchise is not happening soon.
"There isn't one in the pipe," the 49-year-old actor told Variety. "No, there's no plan for a fourth 'Iron Man.'"
The Oscar-nominated actor signed with Marvel and Disney for two "The Avengers" sequels. The first one is for "Avengers: Age of Ultron," which is set for a May 1, 2015 release, and the other is for "Avengers 3," which will hit the theaters in 2018. The Manhattan, New York-born actor, however, is reluctant to reprise his role as Tony Stark further than that.
Does this mean that Downey will be handing the suit over to a new actor?
Don Cheadle, who plays Tony Stark's right hand man James Rhodes aka War Machine in the last two installment of the franchise, has been rumored to replace Downey as Iron Man in potential future installments of the film series, according to Enstarz.
When asked whether he would let somebody take over his role, Downey told Variety, "I like that the idea is that it would be up to me, like I'm casting director for Marvel."
"Don't give it to anybody else," Downey's "The Judge" costar Robert Duvall advised.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly last July, Downey seemed to suggest that he was still willing to take on the role.
When asked if he want to star in an "Iron Man 4," he answered, "It's down to Kevin [Feige, Marvel Studios president] and Ike [Perlmutter, CEO of Marvel Entertainment] and Disney to come to us with what the proposal is, and that's on us to agree or disagree. When things are going great, there's a lot of agreement."
Downey also thought that Tony Stark's story did not wrap up in the third installment. "Iron Man 3 was supposed to answer all the questions for the audience, cure all of my uncomfortable moments in the past with playing this character, and get in every idea that fell by the wayside in the last three movies. And then we shot the movie and I still feel there's a couple other things we've gotta do," the actor told Screenrant last year.
