Oh, snap.
It looks like Iron Man will be chasing a little golden man after all.
Just a month after Disney bosses felt the wrath of Iron Man fans for not including actor
Robert Downey Jr. as part of Avengers: Endgame's Oscars campaign, the Mouse House has officially
changed course.
Disney, which owns Marvel Studios, has now updated Endgame's "for your consideration"
page to include Downey Jr.'s name in the Best Supporting Actor category.
But that's not all.
The Iron Man actor is actually joined in that category by a veritable who's who of Marvel
Cinematic Universe stalwarts - including Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy
Renner, Don Cheadle, Josh Brolin and Paul Rudd on the actor side.
Disney is also now pushing Scarlett Johansson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillan
and Brie Larson in the Best Supporting Actress race.
That's so many actors, it kind of makes you feel bad for the people who got left out.
This news comes after what's been a surprisingly tumultuous month for Disney with regards to
Avengers: Endgame's Academy Awards campaign.
MCU fans reacted with shock that the company had initially chosen not to push Robert Downey
Jr. - whom many believed was more than deserving of an Oscars nomination - or any of the Endgame
cast in the chase for awards season glory.
That decision was even more surprising given that Disney's original "for your consideration"
announcement for Endgame included planned campaigns for Best Picture and Best Director,
not to mention virtually every technical category.
It now appears that Disney brass may have simply been figuring out the logistics of
which actors to slot into what category for Downey Jr. and his MCU teammates.
Fittingly, RDJ will now stand alongside his fellow Avengers as they attempt to charge
the Oscars and net the MCU its first acting statue.
Though an Oscar win is far from guaranteed for any of the Avengers: Endgame cast, Downey
Jr. in particular seems to have the odds in his favor.
After all, Downey Jr. is seen by most Marvel fans as the founding father of Disney and
Marvel's superhero franchise machine, with 2008's Iron Man marking the film that blasted
the MCU into action.
The years since have seen RDJ appear as the brash-but-brilliant billionaire Tony Stark
in nine more Marvel films - including his uncredited cameo in The Incredible Hulk - and
that continued presence essentially made Downey Jr. the face of the MCU over its first three
phases.
"You know, I hate to say 'I told you so,' General, but that super soldier program was
put on ice for a reason.
I've always felt that hardware was much more reliable."
With the actor's time in the MCU officially at an end after his tearful Avengers: Endgame
goodbye, any awards season love for Downey Jr. would be the culmination of over a decade's
worth of work inhabiting what has more often than not been the MCU's most complex character.
But while Iron Man fans will almost certainly be over the moon that Downey Jr. may have
a chance to take a bow with a golden statue in his hand on Hollywood's biggest night,
the man himself may not be quite as excited at this unexpected turn of events.
After that initial "no Oscar campaign for RDJ's Iron Man" news broke, the actor used
an appearance on The Howard Stern Show to address the supposed snub, telling the world
that he wasn't really into an Oscar campaign for his work in Avengers: Endgame to begin
with.
He explained to Stern:
"There was some talk about it and I said, 'Let's not.'"
Like it or not, Downey Jr.'s iron hat has officially been tossed into the awards season
ring for what's certain to be an intriguing supporting actor battle.
But even if it remains unlikely in the grand scheme that RDJ will take home a statue at
the 2020 Oscars, the idea that his iconic work as the MCU's top dog hasn't earned him
a spot in the conversation until now is pretty absurd.
All that being said, if there's a second Avengers: Endgame actor worthy of generating serious
Oscars buzz, it's Chris Hemsworth.
After toiling away in a pair of underwhelming Thor movies, the God of Thunder finally found
his mojo in Taika Waititi's Thor: Ragnarok.
But nothing we'd seen of Hemsworth's Thor could've prepared us for the actor's heart-wrenching
work in Endgame.
"I'm still worthy…"
While RDJ's teaful farewell proved a crowning achievement of the MCU, watching Hemsworth's
"Fat Thor" work through the emotional carnage of his once-privileged life was often the
most intriguing element of Endgame.
So yeah, if the Academy is preparing to show Downey Jr. some love, it'd be nice to see
Hemsworth sharing in that adoration.
For now, we should probably just be happy that Robert Downey Jr. is officially part
of the awards season chatter.
Here's hoping the Academy loves him 3,000.
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