Robert Downey Jr. Apparently Wants To See Iron Man’s Comic Book Successor Get Her Own Movie

Getty Image

CAUTION: Look, Avengers: Endgame came out months ago, but just in case…

By now you probably know that at the end of Avengers: Endgame‘s climactic battle, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) sacrifices himself in order to defeat Thanos and his invading army. As a result, the good guys win but, sadly, they have to lose the man (and woman) who started it all. Despite the loss of Iron Man himself, however, the Marvel Cinematic Universe will go on. Sure, Spider-Man: Far From Home is leaning hard on Peter Parker’s relationship with Stark, but it’s all for a fresh start in Phase Four.

Then again, should the MCU ever decide to somehow revisit the legacy of the character in another fashion, there’s always Ironheart. Co-created by Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Deodato in 2016, Riri Williams is a young African American woman who created her own Stark-like armor and took Iron Man’s place for a brief period in the comics. And according to Eve Ewing, who’s currently writing the Ironheart series for Marvel Comics, Downey thinks the character should be in the MCU.

“The real story here is that Robert Downey Jr. said publicly in a room full of people that Ironheart should be in the MCU,” she tweeted. “I went straight back to the press area afterward and was like YOU ALL HEARD IT, WRITE THAT DOWN.”

— wikipedia brown, consistent hand-washer (@eveewing) June 16, 2019

Ewing’s excitement notwithstanding, that Marvel Studios would adapt the Williams character into the MCU isn’t unheard of. As Screen Rant notes, The Black List reported last summer that Jada Rodriguez had written a well-received script treatment of the Williams character titled Ironheart. “The Black List,” which is known in the industry as “an annual survey of Hollywood executives’ favorite unproduced screenplays,” called the script “one of the best scripts our readers read” at the time.

— The Black List (@theblcklst) July 19, 2018

Nothing has been heard since about Rodriguez’s script or Marvel Studios’ plans, if any, for an Ironheart movie. Regardless, it seems the character’s inclusion in the MCU has the Downey seal of approval.