Although actors going off-script to bring their own thing into the mix has worked substantially well in many cases, with one example being Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, for MCU it has been a hit-or-miss. While most of us cherish Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of Iron Man and the iconic reveal of his secret identity at the end of the movie, it did go on to start a chain reaction for the MCU that hasn’t always resulted in success.
While Robert Downey Jr. did an excellent job improvising many scenes in the movie, including the line, “I’m Iron Man” at the end, it had a rough impact on the rest of the MCU moving forward.
Iron Man’s Success Had a Negative Impact on the MCU
Similar to Guardians of the Galaxy, the MCU didn’t learn all the right lessons from Iron Man‘s success. while Robert Downey Jr. did a great job improvising his scenes, its influence on the latter MCU entries hasn’t always worked out, as this resulted in MCU downplaying character motivations for cheap laughs. One prominent example is Taika Waititi’s Thor 4, as the film allowed actors to improvise and seriously change the plot of the film in order to find the humor in the moment, and the end result didn’t generate the best response.
“Taika was pretty gutsy about just letting us seriously change the plot because of certain choices we made in the scene and certain places we decided to go. Some of it was right and some of it was not right.” Natalie Portman explained.
Iron Man‘s iconic ending also had an adverse effect on MCU’s superheroes, as moving forward, one of the most major elements from the comics was dropped down in the live-action universe.
Robert Downey Jr.’s Iconic Scene Resulted in the MCU Dropping a Major Comic Book Element
While Iron Man‘s iconic reveal at the end helped it set apart from other major superheroes at the time, it did lead Kevin Feige to drop the secret identity element from most MCU stories moving forward. As a result, most MCU heroes didn’t bother maintaining a secret identity, with the biggest victim being Thor, whose alter ego from the comics, Donald Blake, was completely scrapped from the MCU rendition. Talking about Iron Man‘s success and how it inspired them to change certain bits from other characters’ origins, Feige said,
“That success inspired us to go further in the trusting ourselves to find balance of staying true to the comics and the spirit of the comics but not being afraid to adapt and evolve and to change things,”
But with Thor 4 failing to replicate its predecessor’s success and Spider-Man going back to his roots moving forward, making his secret identity once again a priority, things might start to change for the better.
iron Man is available to stream on Disney Plus.
Source: Deadline
