The last line that Tony Stark says to Thanos is one that embodies him as a character and drives home his dedication to his superhero persona of Iron Man. Robert Downey Jr. delivered an absolutely incredible performance in Avengers: Endgame, and while I hate that Tony Stark died, I understand the choice. I still cry about it to this day, but I’m also, apparently, not the only one who wasn’t on board with the death of Iron Man. Jon Favreau, Happy Hogan himself and director of the original Iron Man movie, had concerns.
In a new interview with Vanity Fair while promoting their film The Gray Man, Joe and Anthony Russo broke down some of their iconic scenes and started with the scene in Avengers: Endgame when Thanos thinks that he’s won and says, “I am inevitable,” to which Tony Stark responds, “And I am Iron Man.”
“It’s probably the most pressure we’ve ever had in trying to come up with a line with [screenwriters Christopher] Markus and [Stephen] McFeely on any of these movies,” Joe Russo told Vanity Fair. “You do not want to f—up Tony Stark’s last line.”
Anthony Russo went on to talk about how Jon Favreau wasn’t exactly on board with it. “Part of the pressure came from Jon Favreau, who called us up after he read the script and said to us, ‘Are you guys really going to kill Iron Man?'”
“He really did. I remember pacing on the corner of a stage on the phone with Favreau trying to talk him off a ledge,” Joe Russo went on to say. “He’s like, ‘You can’t do this, it’s gonna devastate people. You don’t want them walking out of the theater and into traffic,'” Joe Russo said. “We did it anyway.”
“We did it anyway, and to Jon’s credit, he hadn’t stepped through the process in the way that we had,” Anthony Russo went on to say, noting that they both “would have had the same reaction” if it hadn’t been them who directed the back-to-back team-up films of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
The reason for it is that Joe Russo felt as if the arc there was earned given what the Avengers had just gone through. “We felt that we had earned the arc that would feel redemptive and emotional and uplifting and hopeful, even though [Stark] had sacrificed his life.”
But it took a while to find the right line for Robert Downey Jr. to say. And while he improvised some, and did a take that was silent, it was the editor, Jeff Ford, who came up with the idea to have the line call back to the first Iron Man film.
“Our editor, Jeff Ford, who is one of the most amazing filmmakers we’ve ever collaborated with, edited the first Iron Man movie. So he had been on the journey with the character since the original Jon Favreau-directed Iron Man,” Anthony said. Joe added, “He hit play, and Thanos says, ‘I am inevitable.’ Beat, beat, beat. And Jeff went, ‘I am Iron Man.’ We were like, ‘Stop! What did you just say?!'”
He added: “We called Downey and said, ‘You gotta put the suit back on.'”
Tony should’ve lived
I’m not exactly quiet about how it should have been Steve Rogers to die in Avengers: Endgame. It makes more sense given the sacrifice play aspect of his dynamic with Tony Stark from the first Avengers movie on. And so, when Tony died, I was less than happy about it. Pair that with the fact that Tony had a daughter and a whole life now, and the last thing I wanted was for him to die and leave his daughter alone—not to mention his dynamic with Peter Parker now making it so Peter has lost every father figure in his life.
I understand why it works. I also still think that it should have been Steve Rogers. But I get it, our Avengers are changing, Steve is going to live that life Tony told him to, and we’re in the multiverse now, so all bets are off on whether or not we’ll see Tony Stark alive and well again. Still, knowing that Jon Favreau had my back about Tony’s death? That’s all I needed.
(via ComicBook.com, featured image: Marvel Entertainment)
