At the beginning of “Iron Man”, Tony Stark asks as soon as he returns to American soil, after spending three months in captivity, to eat a cheeseburger, from the Burger King brand. Gross product placement you say? Not exactly.
If you have seen Iron Man, you necessarily remember (one imagines…) the beginning of the film. While traveling in Afghanistan to present his latest creation, the Jericho missile, Tony Stark is kidnapped by terrorists from the organization “The Ten Rings”.
Seriously injured during the attack, he only survives thanks to the help of a scientist, Professor Yinsen, who grafts an electromagnet powered by a car battery to his chest in order to prevent bursts of shells from reaching his heart.
Not yielding to the threats of terrorists who want him to reproduce his missile, he manufactures, instead and in the greatest secrecy, a miniaturized reactor called “ARK reactor” to replace the car battery, and primary armor. Thanks to the latter and Yinsen’s sacrifice, Stark escapes, but his armor disintegrates during his escape.
Back on American soil, hard marked by his captivity, he is welcomed on the tarmac of the military airport by his assistant, Pepper Potts, who wants to take him to the hospital. Stark refuses, replying that he wants first and foremost a “american cheeseburger”before organizing a press conference to announce the cessation of arms production by Stark Industries. Right in the middle of it, he pulls out a Burger King brand cheeseburger, and eats it in front of the audience.
Below is the video footage…
The spectators were logically able to say to themselves, seeing this sequence, that it was a banal, even rude, product placement for the Burger King brand, which really happens like a hair in the soup. Except that for Robert Downey Jr, it’s more subtle than that.
In an interview he gave to Daily News in 2008he explained that he had driven once at the wheel of his car, with “in the back a fucking ton of cam”, and decided to stop at a Burger King fast food outlet for a burger. It was then that the actor – who had publicly been plagued by serious drug problems for several years – had an epiphany.
Marvel
“I have to thank Burger King. I ordered such a disgusting burger. I had this, a huge glass of soda, and I thought at that moment something really bad was going to happen to me.” In the aftermath, the actor dumped the drug he was carrying at sea, and began his withdrawal. The film’s cheeseburger is therefore his very personal tribute to Burger King, for having saved his life.