Rumors have been doing the rounds that Robert Downey Jr. is set to return as Tony Stark in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for a quite a while, and a recent trade report claimed that the Marvel Studios was considering bringing back several of the Avengers OGs in an attempt to reignite audience interest in the franchise.
While there is still a chance we might see the likes of Chris Evans (Captain America) and Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow) play Variants of their characters in Secret Wars, it doesn't sound like the studio has any intention of "resurrecting" Downey Jr.'s take on the Armored Avenger.
While some fans would obviously love to see RDJ back in the MCU, it's probably fair to say that the majority would prefer that the hero's noble sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame stuck, and that reintroducing Stark - even as a Variant - would tarnish the character's emotional send-off.
As it turns out, Kevin Feige is in full agreement.
In a new Vanity Fair piece on Robert Downey Jr., the Marvel Studios chief promised that there are no plans to "magically undo" Stark's Endgame demise.
“We are going to keep that moment and not touch that moment again. We all worked very hard for many years to get to that, and we would never want to magically undo it in any way.”
So, the original version of Stark won't return, but could we still see Downey Jr. as a Variant? It doesn't sound like the actor has much interest, and was reportedly reluctant to even do brief reshoots for a single line of dialogue after wrapping his final scene.
“We’d already said tearful goodbyes on the last day of shooting. Everybody had moved on emotionally,” Endgame co-director Joe Russo says. “We promised him it would be the last time we made him do it—ever.”
“That was a difficult thing for him to do, to come back to pick up that line,” Anthony Russo adds. “When he did come back, we were shooting on a stage directly opposite where he auditioned for Tony Stark. So his last line as Tony Stark was shot literally a couple hundred feet from his original audition that got him the role.”
Some time has passed, and Downey Jr. may feel differently now. "Never say never" does seem to be a mantra for most of the former MCU stars, but based on Feige's comments, we'd say fans have likely seen the last of the actor as Iron Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.