Robert Downey Jr. Unlikely To Be Back For ‘Iron Man 4’

Despite Iron Man 3 being the second highest debut at the box office, it’s not enough to get Robert Downey Jr. interested in an Iron Man 4. According to reports, the actor who has played the title role of Iron Man, has no plans to return for another sequel.

For anyone following Robert Downey Jr. the news that he won’t be reprising his role shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. He’s said that he wants to retire his character from the series in the past. Alluding to hanging up his coat, the actor referred to his on set injury during the taping of Iron Man 3 as his spring board for thoughts of retirement, saying:

“[The injury] got me thinking about how big the message from your cosmic sponsor needs to be before you pick it up. How many genre movies can I do? How many follow-ups to a successful follow-up are actually fun?”

So what does this really mean forIron Man? It may not mean what you think. One dinner meeting in Los Angeles was enough to convince the actor to consider reprising his role as Iron Man/Tony Stark for the The Avengers 2 and The Avengers 3. That said, fans of Tony Stark’s snark will still have plenty to look forward to in the coming years.

Downey Jr. isn’t exactly hurting either, as his new agreement with Marvel will see him earning a ton of money in addition to his $50 million that he earned from the 2012 film The Avengers. Of course this doesn’t even begin to factor in what the actor has made for all three Iron Man films. There’s back-end compensation and box office bonuses to consider as well.

According to Doug Creutz, a financialist, his departure from the Iron Man series could prove to cost the studio a pretty penny too. “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.”

Do you think the series should continue without Robert Downey Jr.?