Robert Downey Jr. has seen an incredible amount of professional success since becoming Iron Man 15 years ago, but even the biggest stars have the occasional setback. While Downey is getting strong critical responses for his performance in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, he’s also dealing with the recent cancellation of HBO’s Perry Mason series which he co-produced. However, Downey is taking the end of the show in stride saying that in the current media environment, everybody is just trying to do the best they can.
After two seasons, and a massive upheaval at parent company WB, the decision was made to end Perry Mason last month, and while this left fans with a frustrating cliffhanger ending that will never be resolved, Robert Downey Jr. doesn’t sound quite as upset. Speaking with the New York Times, Downey was asked, if was able to “make sense” of the business, considering that a show that seemed to be well received got canceled so soon. Downey seems to admit that it is hard to make sense of things, but at the end of the day, it all comes down to the numbers. He explained…
Since my ship came in in 2008, when Iron Man had that big weekend, I have been a self-described expert on the ways of the world of creativity and commerce. It’s not that the playing field changes — it’s that it morphs into something that you can’t even really call a playing field anymore. It’s a kind of mosaic of what it was moments before. If I am running a major streamer — which sounds like a big No. 1; how serious is it if the mind immediately goes to peepee? — anyway, you look at the budget, you look at the numbers and it comes down to a spreadsheet.
In the era of streaming, we’ve seen a lot of shows that seemed popular among fans end up getting canceled. Netflix, a particularly guilty party in this, has claimed it has never canceled a successful show, but that then asks the question of what it means to be successful. While the metrics of streaming are very nebulous, and the focus of a pair of Hollywood labor strikes, at the end of the day it does seem to come down to looking at the cost of making a show and comparing it to its viewership. If it’s not deemed “worth it,” the show goes away.
Based on that, how does Robert Downey Jr. decide what shows or movies to produce or star in? He just makes the best decision he can based on the information that he has and then sees what happens. If nothing else Downey thinks the situation is fair because nobody really has a handle on this any better than anybody else. He continued…
You just go, “Welcome to Thunderdome.” I think it has been great in that we can all say that not one of us can entirely hit our ass with both hands right now, so let’s just keep doing what we believe is the best course of action.
At the end of the day, it’s hard to argue with Downey. All you can do is what you think is best, and then hopefully things will work out. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.
