If Robert Downey Sr. were more famous and his progeny less well-known, the “Junior” in Robert Downey Jr. would take on a much greater significance. It would become less a mark that he comes from an interesting family and become more like the “Junior” in Frank Sinatra Junior: a curse delivered at birth to ensure that the son will neither usurp the father professionally nor challenge his esteemed place in the show-business firmament.

I would consider Robert Downey Sr. a great man and a great artist, but he was blessed and cursed to live his professional life in the margins; first, as one of the great innovators of early independent experimental film, and then as an increasingly irrelevant commercial filmmaker—reduced to churning out garbage like The Gong Show Movie for his buddy Chuck Barris.

Recently, Criterion released a box set of Downey Sr.’s early experimental films, as well as Putney Swope, the outrageous ad-world satire that represented Downey Sr.’s creative and commercial breakthrough and semi-famously inspired Louis C.K. to become a filmmaker. The films included in the set are so personal and intimate that they sometimes feel more like home movies than proper films.

In a sense, they are home movies: lively improvised slices of life prominently featuring the filmmaker’s family, particularly his actress wife Susan. These are fascinating sociological documents of how New York looked in the 1960s and how New Yorkers behaved enlivened by an anarchic comic spark that presages the tiny comic revolutions of National Lampoon and Saturday Night Live (where Robert Sr.’s brother James worked and continues to work for decades) and Woody Allen’s golden age.

This is the upside to the world that Robert Downey Jr. was born into: he was a beautiful, androgynous child whose family name might not have meant anything to outsiders, but marked him as countercultural royalty to the right people. He was a little prince raised by bohemian parents who left him a complicated legacy.

Robert Downey Jr. as Charles Spencer Chaplin in Chaplin

Downey Sr. introduced his little prince to both acting and marijuana at a very early age. While the notion of pot as a gateway drug seems increasingly ridiculous, it does not seem coincidental that a child introduced to drugs by his father would go on to become the world’s most famous junkie.

For years, Downey Jr. had the strange misfortune to be our most famous drug addict; a man riddled by demons so intense and so severe that he was as famous for being a drug addict as he was for being one of the most talented and charismatic actors of his generation. So when Robert Downey Jr. famously and, to be brutally honest, factually, told Entertainment Weekly that he wouldn’t make a 500,000 dollar indie movie after a blockbuster, there was a whole lot more at play than the aging Downey Jr.’s concern for the comforts and ease of studio movies.

I have no doubt that Downey Jr. loves his father. He was one of the guests at a tribute to him in LA not too long ago (along with Downey Sr. super-fan Paul Thomas Anderson), but his father left him a violently contradictory legacy. Downey Jr. grew up on independent film sets, or what would be sets if his father didn’t prefer just shooting on the streets without a permit. So for Downey Jr., independent films are more than just an option post-blockbuster. They’re a massive part of a past that contains incredible triumphs but also incredible pain rooted in the drugs that were a bond between a brilliant, troubled son and his brilliant, troubled father.

Press tours have a way of bringing out the worst in actors by subjecting them to the same asinine questions over and over again and making them feel like mercenaries out shilling their wares to whatever outlet is interested. So when Downey Jr. told Entertainment Weekly Radio that he’s reluctant to plunge into the world of independent film again because, in his estimation,
“they’re exhausting and sometimes they suck and then you just go, ‘What was I thinking?” part of me suspects he was channeling the sneering bluntness of Tony Stark.

Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark in Iron Man

That’s what makes Downey Jr’s casting as Tony Stark/Iron Man so inspired. They’re both paradoxically men of almost superhuman resilience and strength who are paradoxically defined by their intense vulnerability. And, if that fifty million dollar paycheck and robot suit can make a man who has been through many a hell of his own devising, feel stronger and less vulnerable, than it’s understandable why he might prefer playing superheroes to the kinds of misfits bumming around the fringes you tend to find at Sundance.

And, to give Downey Jr. credit, a lot of independent films are terrible. The idea that a film’s budget and tone and production paradigm makes it inherently worthwhile and the product of artists is insulting to the great independent films that do overcome tremendous obstacles to become a lasting piece of art. If we pretend that every independent film is a scruffy triumph like Winter’s Bone then we greatly undervalue that particular film’s enormous value.

I’d like to imagine that if another script like A Scanner Darkly were to come to Downey Jr. he would not toss it in the circular file because the set lacked an impressive craft services budget. I do not blame Downey Jr. for not wanting to be James Toback’s alter-ego in a series of self-indulgent indies that seem to exist solely to satisfy Toback’s massive ego.

Robert Downey Jr. as James Barris in A Scanner Darkly

As to Birdman director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s argument that superhero films represent “cultural genocide,” well, I would argue that Iron Man 3 as an achievement towers over Birdman, Academy Award or not. Pop culture isn’t innately trash any more than independent films are innately high art.

It’s safe to say that Downey Jr. has spent more time on independent movie sets than almost any writer who has interviewed him, and knows of their joys and agonies better than just about anyone. These films are not just a world he knows well, they were the spaces that created and distorted him, and where he has honed his idiosyncratic gifts. And, if this man who has survived so much, wants to leave these worlds, at least temporarily, in his past, I, for one, cannot blame him.

Three years ago, Joss Whedon was given an awesome set of toys to play with: a bounding, hulking man-beast; a crimson-haired femme fatale; a hammer-wielding Norse god; a deadly archer super-spy; a ballistic man made of iron; a patriotic super soldier; Samuel L. Jackson with an eyepatch. He had a big sandbox to play in, too; 2012’s The Avengers ran a whopping 2 hours and 20 minutes, giving him plenty of room to smash his new toys together, give them quippy things to say and conjure up some villains (alien invaders and a smirking, meddling trickster) for them to save the world from. It was big, it was loud, it was a hell of a lot of fun, and all us kids standing around the sandbox showered him with applause once the dust settled and the show was over. Then, he called it a day, putting his action figures away until his next grand production of geek theater.

That brings us to The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Whedon‘s hotly anticipated encore performance. The super-sequel has got everything you’d expect: insane action scenes, clever one-liners, high-stakes drama and geeky easter eggs galore. It’s exciting to have Whedon return to the MCU playground, but there’s a problem: he’s got about twice as many toys as he did last time. Suddenly, the sandbox seems a bit crowded. With four major storylines going on simultaneously and a staggering number of superheroes and villains to keep track of, Marvel Studios’ latest summer blockbuster feels stretched too thin.

On the other hand, it never feels jumbled or messy; Whedon is a seasoned storyteller, and he somehow manages to make this tightly packed mega movie feel pretty well-organized, streamlined and easy to follow. He never loses command of his band of heroes, but what he’s lacking is prioritization. Each of the nine (!) primary characters is given a rich backstory and emotional arc to explore, which sounds cool until you realize that, due to time constraints, they have a mere handful of scenes to get the job done. As a result, the storylines feel abbreviated across the board.

It’s unfortunate, because there’s some really interesting stuff going on here that could have used more time. Robert Downey Jr.‘s Tony Stark sets up the main conflict early on, strutting unknowingly into a world of tech trouble when he and The Hulk himself, Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), inadvertently birth Ultron (the villain of the film’s subtitle, voiced by James Spader), a sentient A.I. designed to protect the world, but who instead decides to purge it of the “poison” that is humankind. What hath Stark wrought? A.I. panic is fascinating, relevant subject matter that Whedon unfortunately has precious little time to explore (look to Alex Garland’s recent Ex Machina for deeper insight).

Where Whedon excels is at building his characters in quick strokes with tasty details that stick to the back of your brain like bits of candy. It’s amusing, for example, when you realize that Ultron has somehow inherited Stark’s glib, quick-fire sense of humor: When a group of scientists run away from him screaming after he brutally murders several of their colleagues, he sarcastically pleads, “Wait! Guys?!” as if he’d made an innocuous party foul. The tyrannical robot is clearly his father’s son, and yet throws a fit at the slightest notion that he’s anything like his genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist daddy. Whedon’s always been great at giving his villains a human dimension (Buffy fans holler), and Ultron is no exception.

Iron Man’s robo-baby issues aside, the relationships between he and the rest of the Avengers are deepened and expanded. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Dr. Banner explore further the flirtation teased in the first film, providing an unexpected taste of romance. Captain America (Chris Evans) takes issue with Stark’s reckless exploitation of technology (setting the foundation for the impending Civil War), and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) does some extraneous soul-searching that’s mostly there to set up his next solo movie. Franchise newcomers Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson join the fray as Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, a pair of “enhanced” twins who carry a deep-seated vendetta against Tony Stark.

Surprisingly, the film’s most poignant presence is that of Jeremy Renner‘s Hawkeye, who’s been significantly upgraded from his second-tier role in the first movie. We get to see a bit of his refreshingly ordinary home life; his wife is played by Linda Cardellini, who gives a terrific, grounded performance that comes completely out of left field. Through Hawkeye, who’s essentially a man amongst gods, Whedon defines both the story’s stakes and what being an Avenger truly means.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the thing most ticket-buyers will be paying to see: the action. The sweet, sweet, fist-pumping, “I can’t believe I’m seeing this” action. The movie opens with a snowy raid on a Hydra fortress in the fictitious Eastern European country of Sokovia. There’s a slo-mo shot (featured prominently in the trailers) of all six heroes charging through hoards of Hydra henchman phalanx-style, each Avenger locked in the most badass action pose you’ve ever seen. It’s ridiculously cool. On the other end of the film, we see Iron Man, Thor, and their new buddy, a monk-like floating android called Vision (Paul Bettany), attacking Ultron with laser beams and lightning bolts in unison. Again, ridiculously cool!

Moments like these are so slathered in comic-book awesomesauce my inner geek spontaneously combusted with excitement. Yes, the action can be a bit hollow and flashy, like watching the Harlem Globetrotters light up the court. But you know what? I love the freaking Harlem Globetrotters! (Especially when they were on Gilligan’s Island!) If I’m being honest, I could watch Iron Man pile-drive The Hulk through a skyscraper over and over without a word of complaint.

Avengers: Age of Ultron has no obligation to be the be-all-end-all epic most people want it to be. In reality, it’s nothing more than the action-packed culmination of three years-worth of superhero solo movies, and that’s fine by me. I did have problems with how evenly the narrative focus was spread across the main characters (I’d have much preferred Thor’s lame side story be cut in favor of more “Hawkeye at home” time), and I do feel like the existential quandary embodied by Ultron could have been fleshed out more.

But then I think about a fantastic party scene early in the movie in which the gang make a fun wager to see who can lift Thor’s precious Asgardian hammer, Mjolnir. Cap gives it a wiggle; a look of panic flashes across Thor’s face. The friends exchange Whedon-esque banter, sip some bubbly, talk a little trash and share some laughs as they use their incredible powers for cheap entertainment. It’s lighthearted, juvenile fun. Can’t be mad at that.

After skipping last week’s episode to live out his boyhood dreams at WrestleMania, Bernard is back to host this week’s episode of the Way Too Indiecast! (Did he smell what The Rock was cookin’?) Joining him on the show this week is Susan, CJ, and a very special guest: veteran movie critic and writer at Next Projection, Screen Invasion, and Very Aware, Mel Valentin!

This week’s episode is comic book themed, with the crew discussing their favorite and least favorite comic book movies, as well as running down their lists of which comic books would make for great movies but haven’t been adapted yet (Susan suggests a popular “deathly” manga, and Bernard’s got a pick that could reach Terrance Malick levels of beauteousness). Add to all the graphic novel goodness our weekly Indie Picks and you’ve got one hell of a show! Join us, true believers!

Topics

• Indie Picks of the Week (3:50)
• Our Favorite Comic Book Movies (19:35)
• Bad Comic Book Movies (30:44)
• Comic Book Movies We Want to Be Made (42:08)

WTI Articles Referenced in the Podcast

Man From Reno review

Oldboy review

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It’s hard to imagine now, but when Marvel Studios began erecting what we now know as the Marvel Cinematic Universe back in 2008, the mighty heroes that make up our beloved Avengers—Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, The Hulk, Black Widow–were generally regarded as B-list superheroes. Most people at the time were somewhat familiar with the characters, but very few in the general public obsessed over them like they did Wolverine, the X-Men, or DC Comics icons Batman and Superman.

Since then, Marvel has racked up an impressive catalogue of good-to-excellent superhero movies, building a thriving ecosystem and even managing to make D-list outcasts The Guardians of the Galaxy a worldwide phenomenon. But for comic book fans like myself, there has always been that one hangup that’s been needling at us since the MCU’s inception: Where’s Spider-Man?! It hurt my heart a little to watch the Avengers kick ass all over New York City without the web-head swinging around, making snarky remarks, and helping them knock out some baddies.

Now that our childhood dreams are coming true and Spider-Man is confirmed to be joining the MCU, there are a few questions on my mind as to how this will affect Marvel’s future plans, which had up until now been thoroughly mapped out through 2019. Peter Parker’s entry into the fold is going to shake things up big-time, so join me as I speculate what the Spidey-fied future of the MCU holds in store.

[Note: The most obvious question on some people’s minds is, “Who will they cast as Peter Parker?” While it’s an interesting question, I don’t feel particularly inclined to speculate since at this point we know so little and it’s so early on in the process. Maybe in a future piece. For now…]

Will Joss Whedon Stick Around?

Joss Whedon has been the mastermind behind the MCU since his debut directing 2012’s The Avengers, and since then he’s been a consultant on virtually every Marvel Studios production, helped create Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and taken on this summer’s gargantuan Avengers: Age of Ultron. He said recently that he “couldn’t imagine doing this again”, revealing that he has no intention of directing any more Avengers movies.

But Mr. Whedon is a comic book fan at heart, and like every other comic book fan on earth, he’s got to know how unbelievably perfect a candidate he would be to helm a Spider-Man movie, or at least write one. The prospect of him bringing Peter Parker to life with his witty, subversive writing style is the stuff dreams are made of, and if you’re a Buffy fan (or a Runaways fan–woot!), you know that he was born to make this movie. Teen angst, simultaneous wisecracking and skull-cracking, devastating deaths in the family–he’s been doing this shit for years. With hope, Joss will see this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to deliver us the definitive Spider-Man experience.

How Big a Role Will Peter Parker Play in Civil War?

In Civil War, Marvel’s year-long mega-event that sold zillions of comics in 2006-2007, the super-powered population is split in two following the government passing the Superhero Registration Act, which forces individuals with extraordinary abilities to register and act under government regulation, and reveal their secret identities. Tony Stark leads the superheroes in support of the act, Steve Rogers leads those who refuse to register, and a cataclysmic war erupts across the nation with heroes fighting heroes and villains running amok like never before. Guess who’s right smack-dab in the middle of the conflict? Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, of course!

The third installment of the Captain America movie series, Captain America: Civil War, will focus on the popular storyline, and it was confirmed this morning that, now that Spider-Man is a member of the MCU family, the character will make his debut in the Joe Russo-helmed film. In the comics, he’s the face at the center of the debate over the Registration Act, and of the most pivotal moment of the entire storyline revolves around him, so it would be great to see him make a huge impact in the script. (Recreating the aforementioned pivotal moment in the film would be tricky, though, for reasons I won’t spoil here.) I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it’s not a shoehorned, throwaway cameo, which would hurt my soul. If the fine folks at Marvel can find a way to work him into the movie in a major way, it would serve them well.

How Will The Netflix Series Be Affected?

Marvel and Netflix are gearing up to unleash five binge-watchable shows on the streaming service, the first of which being the 10-episode Daredevil series (starring Charlie Cox as the blind crimefighter) launching on April 10, with the others–AKA Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and The Defenders–rolling out over the next couple of years. Like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter, the five series exist within the MCU, though their stories will be mostly contained to the harsher corners of New York City.

With Peter Parker now fighting crime on the same streets as the Defenders, will he make an appearance on any of their shows? Daredevil and Spider-Man are frequent partners in the comics and share a common enemy in Wilson Fisk, a.k.a The Kingpin, who’s being played by the great Vincent D’Onofrio. (I wouldn’t rule out D’Onofrio making an appearance in the upcoming Spidey movie, by the way.) I know for a fact that I would lose my mind if I saw Peter Parker and Matt Murdock cleaning up thugs the NYC streets together, and now that it’s in the realm of possibility, I’m holding out hope for the crossover of my dreams.

Will J.K. Simmons Reprise His Role As J. Jonah Jameson?

Everybody knows that J.K. Simmons‘ turn as J. Jonah Jameson–the huffing, puffing, hard-ass editor-in-chief at the Daily Bugle and obsessive hater of Spider-Man–in Sam Raimi‘s original Spider-Man trilogy was one of the best things about those movies. He was so funny and so perfectly over-the-top that he made a bigger impression than characters that got triple his screen time. I left Whiplash craving more of Simmons screaming and fuming until his veins popped, and him returning as Peter Parker’s crotchety boss for the franchise reboot might be just the thing I need.

In a recent interview on Sirius XM’s The Howard Stern Show (credit to /Film for the scoop), he was asked by the legendary host if another Spider-Man movie was in the cards. His reply was cautiously optimistic: “I just heard that we…that’s a possibility.” When asked if he’d be interested in returning to the role, Simmons replied with an enthusiastic, “Absolutely.” Seems like a no-brainer.

Will the Release Date Shifts Affect Storylines?

The first MCU Spider-Man movie is slated for a July 28, 2017 release. Consequently, every movie after it has been moved one slot back on the release calendar. For example, Thor: Ragnarok, which was bumped off its July 28, 2017 release date by Spider-Man, will now release on November 3, 2017. What’s notable are the shifts to the movies releasing adjacent to Avengers: Infinity War, the two-part event slated for release May 4, 2018, and May 3, 2019.

Black Panther was originally coming out before Infinity War: Part 1, but is now scheduled to release after it. This either means that the events of Black Panther have no bearing on the events of Infinity War, or that the story will have to be tweaked to fit in with the grander MCU arc. It’s all very confusing, and it’s going to be interesting to see how it all plays out. I predict a sweep of raging migraines striking the masterminds at Marvel Studios any second now…