Mark Wahlberg on wanting to play Iron Man after RDJ and “dodging a bullet” with Batman & Robin

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

I'll always have a soft spot for Mark Wahlberg and it's because of three movies he did between 1997 and 1999: BOOGIE NIGHTS, THE BIG HIT and THREE KINGS. He was great in FEAR and he's done some awesome work since, but those three films are why I love me some Marky Mark.

Wahlberg is currently making the rounds promoting 2 GUNS, and in an interview yesterday with Yahoo! Movies UK the actor says he would love to play Iron Man after Robert Downey Jr. retires from playing the character.

I would like to take over the 'Iron Man' franchise for Robert Downey [but] it’s one of those things where I kind of like playing real people, [so] I’ve never been asked.

I'm sure Wahlberg enjoys portraying real people more, but obviously he has no problem playing fictional characters. Although Mark Wahlberg hasn't appeared in a comic book movie (yet), apparently he was being considered to play Robin in BATMAN FOREVER, which also would have meant he probably would have also appeared in the infamous BATMAN & ROBIN

Once I was kind of being talked about for the Robin role in ‘Batman [Forever]' (laughs) Somebody dodged a bullet!

Mark Wahlberg also went on a bit of a rant about about how too many films are filled with CGI and visual effects:

You know, there’s so many effects-driven movies. What people have a tendency to forget, because you look at a lot of the trailers and the summer movies that came out… they all look very similar. Certainly all the end of the world movies. It’s like you can only do so much with effects. I don’t think any person sitting at home watching a television spot, a 15-second spot or a 30 second spot, is gonna say ‘Oh I’m gonna go see a movie because I haven’t seen that!’ You’ve seen it all before. People haven’t been wowed by effects since ‘Jurassic Park’ or ‘Perfect Storm’ with the wave, you know? It’s like now everybody does everything. It’s all kind of the same sh*t. They’re recycling a lot of the stuff.

I agree with some of what Mark Wahlberg says, but with some of these films (especially comic book movies) CGI is necessary. And while many of us love how detailed the effects are now and how big of a scope some of the destruction can be, it's the story and characters we are more concerned with, not the CGI. I think most movie buffs will look past some shitty looking CGI if the movie as a whole is good, but if the film is just awesome CGI and nothing else, that's when we do get annoyed.

You can check out the full interview with Mark Wahlberg below. The actor can next be seen in the Peter Berg film LONE SURVIVOR, which will have a limited release on December 27th, 2013 before hitting theaters nationwide on January 10th, 2014.