There are so many superheroes featured in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame that it’s miraculous that some of them get highlighted at all. Because the overflow of good guys have to split time onscreen though, it therefore makes sense that the primary antagonist should get the most minutes in front of the camera. Yet, a recent calculation of the two blockbuster films shows that Thanos actually comes in second to one of the most iconic Avengers: Iron Man.
According to YouTuber Shinya Kogami, Tony Stark earned 3,001 total seconds over the course of both movies. That roughly equates to about 50 minutes. Thanos, on the other hand, only earned 2,272 seconds. That’s somewhere around 38 minutes. This means that Robert Downey Jr.’s character spent almost twelve more minutes onscreen than Josh Brolin’s, which is fitting for the man who basically launched one of the most prolific franchises in cinematic history.
Stark deserves the most screen time in these record-shattering adventures, too, since the whole MCU was kicked off by Iron Man way back in 2008. The little-known character soon became one of the most recognizable in film due to RDJ’s iconic performance. He’s clearly come a long way from not even being the highest paid actor in a Marvel movie that he was the star of.
Avengers: Endgame was unfortunately Stark’s last entry in the series and this is likely why he dominated the screen time in that film. When looking just at Infinity War, Iron Man trails behind both Thanos and Gamora in terms of seconds spent in the spotlight. In that flick, the villain gets 25 minutes in front of the camera while Gamora gets 17. Stark comes in at a still respectable third place though with 16 minutes.
Of course, now the MCU will have to move on without Iron Man and, it seems, without Spider-Man. Hopefully the legendary franchise will still be able to crank out quality content for years to come even despite the absence of its two most well-known stars. Given all the new exciting projects on the horizon though, something tells us it will.