Nobody expects the Saturn Awards to be ground zero for breaking news, but a big time MCU scoop may have been revealed over the weekend. Robert Downey Jr., who earned a Best Actor award for his performance as Tony Stark in Avengers: Endgame, may not have sung his swansong despite Stark’s heroic sacrifice.
Here’s how Deadline puts it: Robert Downey Jr.’s swan song performance as Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, in Endgame earned him the best actor in a film award. (Downey will be seen in the role of Stark one more time, however, in the Marvel prequel Black Widow in May 2020.)
This actually isn’t all that crazy. Rumors have been that Black Widow, which follows Scarlett Johansson’s first solo outing as the Avengers’ resident Russian spy, would be set during events of Captain America: Civil War. If that’s the case, Stark’s involvement makes sense. Widow betrayed Stark and his pro-registration team in order to go and side with Captain America, furthering the split between the Avengers.
A deleted scene from Civil War in which Black Widow and Stark have one more encounter following her betrayal has made the rounds in various fan screenings, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they used it to set up her solo outing. In that scene, Natasha basically reinforces her position that Stark and the government handled the registration issue badly, and he tells her to run, which is when she hooks up with Cap and his underground squad.
It’ll be fresh for most people since it hasn’t been widely circulated, and wouldn’t require much additional photography, if any.
However it goes down, we may not have seen the last of Iron Man. If anything, this will help remind fans that even when a larger-than-life hero like that falls, their impact will continue to be felt.
Black Widow hits theaters on May 1st 2020.
