While promoting The Judge this weekend, Robert Downey Jr. revealed that there are currently no plans to film an Iron Man 4.

Speaking recently about his latest film The Judge, Robert Downey Jr. was asked whether he had any plans to be in Iron Man 4. The actor revealed that it doesn’t even appear as though an Iron Man 4 is even being worked on.

The actor told Variety, “There isn’t one in the pipe. No, there’s no plan for a fourth Iron Man.” This isn’t entirely new information, as the actor said his focus was going to shift after Iron Man 3, despite the fact that he was finalizing his contract for The Avengers: Age of Ultron and a third Avengers film.

During an interview while promoting Iron Man 3, the actor was asked whether he would stop doing superhero films after hitting 50-years-old and said, “I don’t know. Right now I don’t have a contract to do anything, and I did for the last five years.”

This was before he signed his new contract to play Tony Stark in the following Avengers films, but more importantly it’s shown that he signed a new contract for The Avengers 2 and 3, yet didn’t sign on for an Iron Man 4.

Marvel normally signs actors to fairly long contracts, some having been up to eight films, but Downey could be different due to his mega-success. With his focus on his new film The Judge, we imagine he’ll want to avoid being seen as Tony Stark in every interview he’s seen doing.

Marvel president Kevin Feige said that it’s always been their plan to continue solo Iron Man films and he believes the character could become similar to James Bond, where a new actor takes over the mantle every so often.

While this sounds nice in theory for Feige’s company considering Iron Man 3 made $1.2 billion worldwide, it’s unlikely that the public would respond well to Robert Downey Jr. being replaced.

We’d hope after Guardians of the Galaxy’s success that the studio would be focused on bringing new heroes to the big screen. They’re clearly capable of doing so and maybe that’s why Downey has confirmed that Iron Man 4 is not currently in the cards.

It wouldn’t surprise us to see Marvel bring Iron Man back at some point, but with Robert Downey Jr. playing Tony Stark in The Avengers: Age of Ultron and the subsequent sequels, we’re unsure when a new actor could be tapped to play the “genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.”