Jon Favreau Lobbied Hard Against An ‘Avengers: Endgame’ Death: It Will Make People ‘Walk Out Of The Theater And Into Traffic’
Theaters have slowly been roaring back to life, but there’s still not been an experience that’s anything like Avengers: Endgame. That scene on the battlefield where Cap faces off, seemingly in the face of imminent defeat, against Thanos before Black Panther leads the way with the resurrected Avengers coming back to help? Unbeatable. Cap plucked up Thor’s hammer, Mjölnir, which performed some enormous fan service by answering a long-standing question that’s hung in the air since Age of Ultron. Then all hell broke loose in the best way. As it turns out, though, Iron Man director Jon Favreau was staunchly against the resolution of this scene, which involved Tony Stark giving his life to activate the Infinity Gauntlet, thereby saving the universe.
Favreau (who also portrays Happy in the MCU) was staunchly against killing off Iron Man. Even though Robert Downey Jr.’s contract was, by all accounts, about to expire with Endgame, Favreau was dead set against the Russo Bros. killing off such a beloved mainstay in the MCU. As the Russos told Vanity Fair (within a video interview), they got the call from Jon, and he made his case: by saying that Tony Stark’s death would cause theater walkouts and people walking, dazed, into harm’s way.
Granted, this may have been some exaggeration (and that’s fair, given the emotional heft of Iron Man within the MCU), but via Indiewire, here’s how it went down:
“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?’” Anthony Russo explained.
Joe Russo added, “He did. And I remember pacing on the corner of a stage on the phone with Favreau trying to talk him off a ledge. Because he’s like, ‘You can’t do this. It’s going to devastate people and you don’t want them walking out of the theater and into traffic.’”
And then the Russos said this: “We did it anyway.” Well, they did! Watch the full Vanity Fair interview below.
(Via Indiewire & Vanity Fair)