Marvel Cinematic Universe has offered some memorable heroes who fans have fallen in love with the Avengers like Iron Man, The Hulk, Thor, Captain America and the like. These heroes slowly entered the realms of Marvel, making fans laugh and cry while rooting them to come on top in the end. Marvel has been lucky to procure great actors that embody the comic characters with aplomb, but what of the day that we had to wave farewell to our favorites?
Actors who play superheroes often have an expiry date even if the characters they play do not. The biggest example that comes to mind being Hugh Jackman who played the character of Wolverine for more than a decade. The actor finally decided to retire from the character because he just could not bear the brunt of the character’s physicality and all that it entailed.There may come a day when Robert Downey Jr or Chris Hemsworth may simply be too old to play their on-screen characters. Fortunately for us, that day seems more farther than nearer.
In his interview with Variety, Marvel president Kevin Feige discussed how the possibility of recasting the Marvel superstars is a long way down the future:
“Luckily we don’t have to make that decision anytime soon. There are a lot of movies that everyone is signed on for, and we get to enjoy them for a long time. Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man, and right now I can’t envision anyone else. Chris Evans has embodied Captain America as well as any actor has ever embodied an iconic pop-culture figure like that. I go back to Chris Reeve as Superman as the gold standard, and I think Evans is right there. I couldn’t imagine anybody else. But you also look to history: We have a new Spider-Man right now who was in our Civil War film and is in Spider-Man: Homecoming, and the audience has embraced it. And you can look to Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, and Batman as characters that last longer than any one actor playing them. There’s a precedent for it in other franchises that suggests it’s possible. But right now I don’t want to think about it and don’t need to think about it.”
For now, fans should be comforted by the news that the actors in Marvel are far from over it with their on-screen characters. Feige’s comments may contain a glimmer of hope that The Avengers will also survive Infinite War. We are hoping anyway.
