What will happen to Iron Man and Tony Stark when Robert Downey Jr. decides he’s had enough of the billionaire? In fact, what happens to all the Marvel movies? Do they reboot them every couple of years to account for the new actors and re-tell the same stories or what?

Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige told Badass Digest what his plans are, mostly for Stark but it also hints at the other Marvel superheroes.

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.

This makes a ton of sense, and actually is like a comic book. When a comic book artist or writer leaves they just replace him. Like Edward Norton in The Incredible Hulk. They didn’t have to reboot The Hulk. They just casted Mark Ruffalo to take over.

Think about it: if they have to reboot one movie they have to reboot them all. The movies are interconnected now and forever. So any rebooting would destroy the whole thing. The foundation has been set for all these franchises. Now they just have to build on top of it.

Now that I think about it, this has been Marvel’s M.O. all along. Iron Man 1 and 2 director Jon Favreau left the franchise, so they went and hired Shane Black to do Iron Man 3. Thor director Kenneth Branagh left Thor 2, so they went out and got a new director.

As the saying goes, the show must go on. That’s how Disney and Marvel are going about this and it’s a very good idea. You can enjoy Downey Jr. in at least two more films as Tony Stark (Iron Man 3 and The Avengers 2). After that, who knows. Now, can we give Marvel the rights to X-Men, Spider-Man and Fantastic Four please? [Badass Digest via /Film]

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