When ‘Iron Man’ Star Jeff Bridges Called This Robert Downey Jr Led MCU Flick ‘A $200 Million Student Film’ After Marvel Rejected Their Script: “It Drove Me Crazy”

By Esita Mallik

Jeff Bridges played the role of Obadiah Stane, aka Iron Monger, in the first Iron Man film in 2008. Robert Downey Jr laid the foundation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the rest is history now. It was something new for them all. Jeff, Jon, and RDJ tried to make some changes to the original script, but it was instantly rejected by Marvel, which made Bridges mad. However, he soon changed his mindset to deal with it. That change in thought helped him go ahead with the filming and deliver such an amazing comic book movie.

A few months back, we did a throwback story on how Bridges, Favreau, and Downey changed the script as they were unhappy with the original draft. You can check out the full article here. After Marvel dismissed their idea ruthlessly, the Iron Monger actor revealed a lot of confusion. The film featured Gwyneth Paltrow as Paper Potts and Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan. It also featured Samuel L Jackson in the post-credit scene.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Iron Man star Jeff Bridges recalled that since Marvel rejected their script, saying it was no good, there was chaos on the first day of the shoot. Bridges said, “And so there was a lot of confusion about what our script was, what we were gonna say. We’d spend hours in one of our trailers going over lines and saying, ‘Oh you play my part, I’ll play your part,’ exploring how we were going to do it.”