Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man 3 injury forced the production to a screeching halt, but the break ultimately helped Marvel Studios to polish its story.
In a strange twist of fate, the on-set injury Robert Downey Jr. suffered while shooting Iron Man 3 actually made for a better movie. On the heels of The Avengers' success, the MCU needed to keep audiences interested, and determined there was better way to do that than to show what came next in Iron Man's story. As the franchise's inaugural hero, he was arguably the most popular character from the roster at that time, so it made sense that Marvel kicked Phase 2 off with his third solo movie.
Directed by Shane Black, Iron Man 3 had a contained story, with very few connections to the bigger universe. It used Tony's near-death experience at the end of The Avengers as its narrative launching pad. As the hero was haunted by his fears of another extra-terrestrial attack, he became more paranoid about trying to keep everyone important to him safe. Iron Man 3 also featured one of the most divisive and infamous plot twists in the MCU. It was revealed that the movie's Mandarin was merely an actor, Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley), who had been hired by the real villain, Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce). Even with the largely disliked third-act Mandarin plot twist, Iron Man 3 was a smash hit, earning $1.2 billion against a production budget of just $200 million.
The production of Iron Man 3 encountered a major hurdle, however, when Downey suffered an injury on set. While performing a jumping stunt, he broke his ankle during an awkward landing. This resulted in him having to stay off his ankle for a month and a half, forcing filming to shut down. However, work still continued on the film in a different way and it resulted in a better movie. As revealed in the book The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, producer Stephen Broussard revealed that it gave Marvel Studios a chance to re-evaluate the film's story, particularly Iron Man 3’s third-act problems.
"The thing about unexpected events - like your lead actor needing to rest for six weeks due to an injury - is that they force the creative process to pump the brakes, take a deep breath, look at the bigger picture, and reassess. What initially felt like the worst thing in the world strangely became a gift. Broussard and Black went back to LA, connected with co-writer Drew Pearce, and began working on lingering issues with the film's third act. 'We suddenly had the space and time to figure it out’."
Broussard didn't get into specifics about the issues they were dealing with in regard to Iron Man 3's third act. As has been long known, Marvel Studios initially wanted Rebecca Hall's Maya Hansen to be Iron Man 3's original villain of the story. However, the then-higher-ups at Marvel Entertainment forced them to change this, arguing that having a female villain would mean lower merchandise sales. Outside of this significant change, however, the film had no other known story problems.
It's entirely possible that the changes made to the script were small in nature and simply clarified some plot points. Or perhaps it ironed out a larger issue, such as Tony Stark's ending in the movie. After years of living with the threat of the shrapnel piercing his heart, the genius billionaire finally decided to get surgery. It backed up the idea that he was intending to retire from being Iron Man altogether. That, however, was undermined as he suited immediately back up in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Whatever it was, Broussard sounds happy with the way Iron Man 3 panned out. Admittedly, the threequel is usually criticized primarily for its fake Mandarin twist, but despite that, Kevin Feige recently stood by it, saying that they still think it was a great creative decision overall. Aside from that, the movie was well-made and quite enjoyable. It also organically progressed Tony's story while setting up significant elements that came later. After all, his premonitions about a looming threat lurking in the shadows turned out to be true when Thanos (Josh Brolin) attacked Earth in Avengers: Infinity War.
