I think 100% of the Marvel movies' success is Robert Downey Jr.. He's basically the acting coach and director of those things. I mean, he has all of the stroke and he's making suggestions that aren't ignored and probably controlling the hip populist alt-rightwing politics of that franchise and setting most of the tone of the films he's in. Its starting to wear thin or he's spent or he's second guessing what he's started. These films are basically dumb military-industrial complex training films so little kids will conform to old white Christian values, multiply and consume Disney products with most of their brand loyalty. RDJ thought he was bringing a 21st century post-punk pop art fun to these films but he hadn't really tested the morals he was adopting. Remember this guy s riding a massive comeback after being a crackhead & junkie. He just wants to stay clean and happy and make money privately. But he's betraying his once democratic and artistic freedom. I think because he can't accept the depressed gay leftist artist cliche he was. THAT is exactly what the rest of Hollywood accepted him as but he wants to live as some macho cowboy in a weird kiddie porn fantasy land built on money and anti-Semitic ghosts. I dunno. Maybe it comes from his dad being a promising but failed Marxist indie director. There's some weird fucked up Freudian thing with the Downeys and its very disturbing but  not even shocking or uncommon sadly. Seeing how horrible Hollywood is now and knowing the rumors and legends of the past, Robert Downey Jr might be in a safe haven (as a child he did cocaine with Jack Nicholson and his father at adult parties!). But we need real movies. These tentpole spectacles say the same thing on loop and it just gets flashier but not deeper. At least not noticeably as our culture is changing so fast and there's so much conservative censorship of the facts.

I would be impressed if guys like Downey or James Gunn or Patty Jenkins and of course Zack Snyder actually started reasonable indie production companies to fund their own films and not stay slaves to bean-counting factories. What Coppola tried with American Zoetrope, Corman with New World, you know the rest: Cannon, Troma, AIP, Republic, United Artists. Where are the artist run studios???? Noticeably, Spielberg is back directing/producing for Warner Bros and DreamWorks has become almost as silent as MGM. This depression and monopoly has effected even our biggest directors. But James Cameron is still going. And George Lucas lost LucasArts, but that was just a shell. He could start a studio tomorrow and produce steady films if he wanted. But I think these guys are squeezed out of theaters by the conglomerate studios. Its the tragedy of our era as movie buffs. We have access to all of the greats of yesterday but we're not allowed to get new greatness easily.