Robert Downey Jr. is coming back to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in next year’s Avengers: Doomsday. It’s a big deal because no single actor is as responsible for the success of the MCU as Downey. Had the original Iron Man not been the success it was, we likely wouldn’t be here today, and it’s incredible that the movie worked as well as it did, considering they were basically making it up as they went along.
Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark is absolutely one of the coolest characters in the MCU, and you can tell because he’s often wearing sunglasses, an accessory that he wears significantly more than most of his Avengers buddies. It turns out the reason for the glasses, at least in one key scene, was as much for function as fashion, as Downey once told Vanity Fair he wore them to hide the fact he was reading his lines. Downey said…
There’s a scene where he’s doing a weapons test, and he says, ‘Is it better to be feared or respected? Is it too much to ask for both?’ And Jon [Favreau] and I were literally writing that, line for line, as we went along shooting it that day. And I put on sunglasses because it was all on cue cards.
It’s unclear if Tony Stark's penchant for sunglasses was born entirely from this scene, or not, or if the continued use of sunglasses was done for the same reason, but it honestly wouldn’t be surprising. If Downey wasn’t originally going to be wearing sunglasses in a scene that takes place on a bright sunny day in the desert, then why would he in so many other scenes?
I had never come across this explanation before, and while it all makes perfect sense, it’s also sort of fascinating that this was something that needed to be done. For a franchise that would become revolutionary for the way that it seemed to put thought into creating connections between different characters and films, the first Iron Man wasn’t thought out in advance at all.
It makes the success of the film, as well as the franchise that would follow from it, all the more remarkable. The possibility of making a misstep is certainly increased if one doesn’t really have a plan. Clearly, however, what Favreau and Downey knew they wanted to make was exactly what it needed to be. Downey continued…
It was that kind of thing where you go, ‘It’s more important that we feel like we’re just coming up with this and we like it, and there’s no trick we can’t employ to cover the fact that we’re kind of making it up as we go along.’
Considering the massive size of the Avengers: Doomsday cast, making up as they go along likely has not been an option. Still, fans will be excited to see Robert Downey Jr. again, although considering his Doctor Doom mask, he’ll probably skip the sunglasses.
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