Do Not Turn Robert Downey Jr. Into AI or His Ghost Will Sue Your A**

Last week, Disney announced a “major AI initiative” that sounded ominous as hell until you read it and realized it’s mostly a major investment in VFX and post-production tools, which is where AI belongs and has been for quite some time. At the end of the day, this was most likely to goose investors who love seeing flashy new technical terms, but I’m sure Disney will find a way to do some nefarious sh*t in the process.

Case in point, my immediate dork theory is AI would certainly be one way to solve the problem of beloved Marvel actors aging out of roles. It’s no secret that Robert Downey Jr. did not want Iron Man to die in Avengers: Endgame because he loved those gigantic Marvel checks, so I just assumed he’d be first in line to sign over his soul and appear as Tony Stark into the next century. Not so much!

In a surprisingly firm stance, RDJ does not want to come back as AI characters. In fact, he’s so adamant that he’s literally threatening to sue people from beyond the grave if they go against his wishes to die and stay that way as nature intended. When our boy clocks out for a shift, he clocks out, alright?

Via Variety:

“To go back to the MCU, I am not worried about them hijacking my character’s soul because there’s like three or four guys and gals who make all the decisions there anyway and they would never do that to me, with or without me,” he added.

When host Kara Swisher said that “future executives certainly will” want to digitally recreate Downey on the big screen, the actor responded: “Well, you’re right. I would like to here state that I intend to sue all future executives just on spec.”

“You’ll be dead,” Swisher noted, to which Downey replied: “But my law firm will still be very active.”

Now, one could argue that is RDJ simply negotiating in the press and making it very clear that Uncanny Valley Tony Stark spitting in the face of God will not come cheap. As it shouldn’t.

That said, RDJ is kind of a spiritual dude and old school-ish despite playing a character who was 400% CGI, so maybe he genuinely has concerns about his likeness being trotted out for performances that have absolutely no semblance of a human soul in them. He might actually revere his craft enough to draw a line in the sand, and if so, you can’t ask for a more prominent figure to push back on Hollywood trying to bleed actors even more dry than they already are — because they’re dead.

On that note, this got very macabre. I’m gonna go hug my kids. Mikey doesn’t like staring into the abyss this much. Goddammit, Iron Man.

(Via Variety)