Marvel doesn’t want a repeat of what’s worked well: Robert Downey Jr
Singapore, April 15 (IANS) Actor Robert Downey Jr, best known for playing superhero Iron Man since 2008, says the creative team of Marvel Studios doesn’t believe in repeating what has worked well in the past movies.
“I read in some magazine that the number one fan-voted moment was the airport fight in ‘Captain America: Civil War’ because there are so many superheroes at once. And now that the universe has expanded even more…
“But one thing that the creatives (of Marvel Studios) don’t want to do is do a bigger repeat of something that’s already worked well,” Downey Jr told select media, including IANS, here on Sunday.
Without giving away much about the forthcoming Marvel movie “Avengers: Infinity War”, the actor, who is hailed as the “patriarch” by his co-stars like Chris Evans, said: “The challenge this time was how to top or better or expand something without repeating something that has been executed well before. It’s kind of like the anti-process.
“Usually, if something works, you keep doing that.”
The star, who matched his red and black eyewear with his red, black and white outfit, admitted: “We might be making the movies, but we also are fans and critics of our own work. We try to make it better. But I think this time, we might have nailed it.”
“Avengers: Infinity War”, co-directed by the Russo brothers — Anthony and Joe — is logistically, the “most complicated movie” put together in history.
“We shut down Hollywood for a year because we had every actor working in the business scheduled somewhere in the movie,” said Joe.
The forthcoming movie will see superheroes like Iron Man, Thor, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Star-Lord and Nebula up against the supervillain Thanos. But going by the film’s trailers and posters, one character that is missing is Hawkeye, played by Jeremy Renner.
Joe said: “We did not forget the twice-nominated Renner – and those are Oscar nominations. We have a really interesting story cooked up for Hawkeye, so I would say, patience is a virtue.”
Recalling the time when British actor Benedict Cumberbatch joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) as Dr. Stephen Strange in the 2016 film “Doctor Strange”, he said: “It feels a little intimidating, to be frank. When you first step on to a set with a roster of iconic characters as well as iconic actors and then you go about doing your day’s work and forget about the numbers of 18 plus films and 14 plus billion dollars.”
Talking about her “weird, creepy, fun character” Nebula and her association with MCU since “Guardians of the Galaxy”, actress Karen Gillan said: “I’m honoured. It’s very exciting to get to be in more than one Marvel movie. I love the character that initially was a villain.
“Then we got to know her back story and started to question whether she was a villain or not.”
She was so excited to be a part of MCU that she didn’t mind shaving off her head.
Twenty two heroes, six infinity gems, one mad titan — “Avengers: Infinity War” releases on April 27 in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu in India.
