The biggest MCU shocker of the past few months — maybe years — is the return of Robert Downey Jr. to the franchise. Not as Iron Man, but as villain Doctor Doom. And as it turns out, RDJ kept the secret not just from the entire world, but also from the still-active Avengers text chat.
The news comes via app purveyor and amateur musician Jeremy Renner, who played Hawkeye in the Avengers films, and in his own spinoff series. Renner is in a text chat with the OG six: himself, RDJ, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, and Mark Ruffalo. And after RDJ surprised San Diego Comic-Con’s Hall H with the reveal, Renner started “blowing up [Downey’s] phone.”
“I had no idea,” Renner told Us Weekly. “This son of a b***h didn’t say anything to me, and we’re good friends.”
Renner, who is currently promoting a partnership with plant-based products Silk, and not entertaining 6,500 screaming fans at Comic-Con, started spamming the text chat. “I’m like, ‘What’s going on? Are you hiding this from us?’ I don’t know. That’s exciting news, man. I’m really, really excited about it.”
So will Renner be in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars? Or is he cool slinging Silk for the foreseeable future? As Renner explained, he clearly has no idea what’s happening — maybe there’s a separate “No Renners” chat on the side? — but seems down for whatever.
“It seems the Avenger movies have always been really fan favorites and there’s so many wonderful characters in them. I think it’s going to be challenging to get everybody together,” Renner continued. “I think they’re going to probably have to piece it together like week-by-week, just for people’s schedules… I think we’ll probably be doing it. We’ll have to figure it out. It’s all brand new. It all just happened. They just made the announcement, so I guess we got to start figuring it all out.”
With Disney’s D23 Expo running August 9 through 11, and potentially more Marvel announcements to come, will Marvel Studios announce they’re going to reunite the original Avengers for the upcoming sequels? If they do, hopefully someone texts Jeremy Renner, first.
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