According to The Hollywood Reporter, Iron Man 3 star Robert Downey Jr is currently negotiating his appearance in Joss Whedon’s Avengers Assemble 2 and 3 as Tony Stark, but not for Iron Man 4.
Obviously, that isn’t to say it won’t happen, but perhaps isn’t on the immediate agenda.
Without Downey Jr, the site reports that Marvel’s earnings could be down 9%, with analyst Doug Creutz of Cowen and Co adding, “It would be a definite negative for that particular franchise. He is Tony Stark. The other individual franchises – Thor, Captain America, Hulk, etc – don’t have near the level of box-office potential that Iron Man does.
“The other way to look at it is that Iron Man would probably look more like those other franchises in terms of box-office performance without Downey.”
Iron Man 3 is in cinemas now. You can buy the Iron Man 1 & 2 Blu-ray Double Pack for £21.75 on Amazon.co.uk.
