Making a movie can often take a long time comparatively, especially for the star actor(s) – look at the schedule for IRON MAN 3. The shoot is about to begin in May and will run through the Summer into September, and that isn’t even counting the energy and time it took Robert Downey Jr. to train before the shoot or the energy and time it will take for his promotional duties as the release date draws closer.
It’s a bit of a “first world problem,” I know, but the point is that Downey Jr. surely has plenty of other projects on which he would no doubt like to spend his energy and time. So he won’t be wearing the armor forever, and as with every popular character (especially superheroes) the question then becomes: to reboot, or not to reboot?
So when President of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige was asked about just what Marvel might be planning to do when Downey Jr. eventually bows out of the role (perhaps after AVENGERS 2?), he revealed this intriguing line of thinking: “I think Bond is a good example. Let’s put it this way: I hope Downey makes a lot of movies for us as Stark. If and when he doesn’t, and I’m still here making these movies, we don’t take him to Afghanistan and have him wounded again. I think we James Bond it.”
Which to me is really the way superhero projects should start going. Unless a drastically different and new vision can be brought to a hero’s origin story which genuinely challenges public perception of who this character is (which is what THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN is at least trying to do), I say let’s hear it once and then leave it be. There are just so many characters and story arcs that remain untapped because of all the time spent rehashing a story we fundamentally already know.
But what do you think? Can the “Bond method” really be applied to superheroes, with a new actor stepping in to take up the story where it was left off?”