Robert Downey Jr. Said He Hated The Dark Knight. Then He Copied Batman Begins With Iron Man

With Robert Downey Jr. returning to the Marvel universe as Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday, there’s never been a better time to look back at the MCU film that started it all and ask a question nobody has fully answered: Did Iron Man steal the plot from Batman Begins?

In an interview in 2008, Robert Downey Jr. mentioned that he didn’t care for Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. This is particularly strange given that he pitched himself as Scarecrow to Nolan just a few years before signing on as Marvel’s Iron Man. What’s even stranger is that when you step back and look at Nolan’s Batman Begins and Jon Favreau’s Iron Man, there are a lot of similarities in the tone and the storytelling. We rewatched the film, and here’s our takeaway from the film that started the MCU.

Iron Man Arrived When the MCU Looked Nothing Like It Does Today

Now that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is this juggernaut of interconnected stories and branching timelines, it’s refreshing to go back to basics sometimes. Once you indulge in the earlier instalments of the MCU, it can be surprising to see how much the leading entertainment franchise in the world has changed over the past decade and a half.

One thing that sticks out among the early Marvel movies is 2008’s Iron Man. This wasn’t just the moment the MCU was born, but Iron Man was an event that redefined the art of filmmaking for years to come. However, upon rewatching the film, I couldn’t help but notice just how much Tony Stark’s origin story in Iron Man parallels another superhero film that redefined the genre only a few years prior: Batman Begins.

The Dark Knight’s DNA Is All Over Iron Man’s Origin Story

Batman Begins was, by 2005, the strangest film Christopher Nolan had worked on. By all means, a superhero film directed by the same filmmaker behind Memento sounded like a pipe dream – and yet, it worked flawlessly. Nolan infused this Batman origin story with a more realistic tone. This version of the Dark Knight uses plausible technology instead of the hi-tech fantasy gadgets of the Burton era. Curiously enough, Iron Man would apply a similar concept to Tony’s superhero origin story.

While earlier Marvel films like The Incredible Hulk and even Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man relied on more “comic book” tech and science to create their characters, 2008’s Iron Man is surprisingly grounded for a Marvel flick. The opening scenes with Tony taken captive in Afghanistan feel completely out of place (in a good way) compared to the modern MCU. There’s no way a new Marvel film would show a video of one of their characters in an ISIS-style interrogation video. That’s just how raw Iron Man can be.

Two Billionaires, Two Mentors, One Identical Template

It’s no secret that Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne share many similarities. The two billionaires use special suits to fight crime and lead superhero teams. However, Batman Begins and Iron Man establish many parallels between the two comic book characters.

For starters, both Tony and Bruce have a mentor figure who instructs them on the ways of heroism. For Tony, it’s Yinsen, who he meets during his captivity, while he also shares a close connection with his lifelong business partner, Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges). For Bruce, while Alfred will always be his moral compass, his master in all things Batman was Ra’s al Ghul (Liam Neeson).

Both characters have demons to fight with before they can become heroes. Tony is a weapons manufacturer, while Bruce feels guilty for Gotham’s corrupt state. The two films establish that, despite their fortunes, both Tony and Bruce face internal turmoils that keep them from achieving greatness.

Then, there are the villains.

The Mentor Who Becomes the Monster

In a surprising twist, Batman Begins and Iron Man feature the main character’s closest friend becoming the big bad in the end. Batman parts ways with the League of Shadows when he swears he’d never kill, even if it is to achieve the greater good. Tony faces a similar dilemma, only that he discovers Stane intends to steal his Arc Reactor research to produce more advanced weaponry. That’s what eventually led to the emergence of Stane’s Iron Monger persona.

The two mentors suddenly become villains, setting both Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne on their way to star in two successful superhero trilogies.

Did Favreau and Feige Copy Nolan — or Did They Just Think Alike?

Neither Jon Favreau nor Kevin Feige has ever directly credited Nolan’s Batman Begins as the template, and Favreau’s primary stated influence for Iron Man was the character’s classic Demon in a Bottle comic arc rather than any DC property.

But the structural overlap is too precise to dismiss as coincidence. Look at the grounded realism over comic book fantasy, a traumatic captivity replacing a training montage, a trusted father figure unmasked as the true villain. Batman Begins showed Hollywood the template worked. Iron Man proved it wasn’t a fluke.

Iron Man and the MCU Were Never This Serious Again

Seeing both Batman Begins and Iron Man these days can be a blessing for fans who might be weary of the current direction and tone of the MCU. Iron Man especially feels more like a “real” film than most entries in the MCU; when Tony proudly tells the media in the end, “I am Iron Man,” we didn’t know there would be more than twenty Marvel movies – all connected – coming after that.

It was a simpler time for superhero flicks. Even Batman Begins serious militaristic tone feels relaxed by today’s DC standards. Now that Marvel appears to be entering a renaissance of sorts with Deadpool & Wolverine and DC doing its own thing, this is the perfect time to revisit the movies that spawned the pop culture of an entire generation. That allows us to understand why we fell in love with comic book flicks in the first place. And it certainly wasn’t because of the quips.

And the next time Robert Downey Jr. suits up — this time as Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday — it’s worth remembering that his greatest role was built on a foundation Nolan laid first. Whether he’ll admit it or not.

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