Why Robert Downey As Tony Stark?

What made you think of Rob to play Tony Stark, and was it a challenge selling him to the studio as Iron Man?

Favreau: Sitting across from him, the lightbulb just went off over my head, and I realized this was the guy that could bring me home. This is the #1 draft pick that's going to take me to the Super Bowl. I got how to make the movie, how we were not going to just be a poor man's Spider-Man if I could get this guy.

The problem of course was far too interesting of a choice for the studio and there was an unequivocal resounding "no" when I presented him. There were people who were fans of his, and many people said, "Look, it's clearly the best choice creatively. It's just the first movie, it's too much money. Nobody knows Iron Man, so now you're going to be defining Iron Man by Robert because people know Robert more than they know Iron Man."

That was never the case with the Hulk and Eric Bana, it's not the case with Spider-Man and Tobey or with Batman and Christian Bale, so I understood their misgivings. He's ten years older than they would have liked me to hire somebody if they're starting a franchise, too. Hopefully, if this movie works well, they're going to make a lot of them.

That's many years, and he's already in his 40's, so I got it, but as we went round and round, we realized that this guy brings dimension, this is like hiring Johnny Depp to do "Pirates." People are ready for this guy to play this role. It's not him starring in "Elf," it's him as Tony Stark. That's Tony Stark. People want Tony Stark to be Tony Stark. That's why people make rap songs about him. He captures that bad boy attitude and makes this movie not be Batman.