Ever since the premiere of Avengers: Endgame, Twitter is flooded with hilarious memes about Robert Downey Jr. and why he may not play Iron Man again.
You’ve seen them, right? Apparently, RDJ won’t be in the MCU because he’s becoming a real-life Tony Stark! For us, he has always been Iron Man, whether in films or in real life, so no surprises there!
But on a serious note, RDJ won’t be on the MCU because they haven’t renewed his contract — although the fans are hoping that they do it the near future.
So what will he be doing now that he isn’t trying to save the world? But wait, he is trying to save the world, isn’t he?
Following in Stark’s Footsteps
Even after leaving Tony Stark behind, RDJ is still following in the Avenger’s footsteps.
While in Vegas earlier this month attending the Re: Mars Amazon Conference, Downey Jr. announced the launching of The Footprint Coalition, an organization committing to using advanced tech to save our planet by conserving the environment. Tony Stark would be so proud!
During the announcement, RDJ claimed that through nanotech and robotics, we could clean up a significant portion of planet earth, if not all of it, in a decade.
Despite making the big reveal, however, The Footprint Coalition isn’t quite ready to hit the ground running yet.
The official launch is scheduled for April next year, which is only a few months away. We can wait for the next big thing for a little longer, can’t we?
The actor shared this information with the world as the conclusion of a speech that lasted for over 20 minutes.
During this speech, RDJ talked about AI, his career, the MCU (obviously), and how Tony Stark evolved as a character during the ten years he portrayed him.
The talk featured cameos from Alexa (Amazon’s version of Siri) and Matt Damon, with his being via video.
Although RDJ didn’t reveal how his organization plans on meeting its objective, he did say that even if they managed the smallest impact, it would be the most significant achievement of his life.
The actor also launched the organization’s website on stage, but it still needs some work. Currently, the most one can get out of it is signing up for a newsletter.
Hope
Do you think that playing Iron Man has changed RDJ’s perception of technology? Tony Stark solves most of his problems using advanced tech, and the suit both he and Pepper wore at Avengers: Endgame was all nanotech.
Throughout the actor’s talk, he went on and on saying how AI has given him hope – hope that it can be used to avert the looming environmental crisis.
RDJ’s strong feelings about saving the environment stem from the fact that he feels that he has been part and parcel of everyone contributing to climate change.
In a way, he is just a man seeking to right his wrongs, and we’ll be the lucky beneficiaries of his campaign.
And do you think that this is the first we’re hearing of RDJ and advanced tech? You bet it isn’t! With his wife, the actor has been producing a documentary on AI, to be released as a YouTube Original series.