Theory: the movie Birdman is a part of the MCU

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/ie6e0h/theory_the_movie_birdman_is_a_part_of_the_mcu/

If it's not known what happens in "Birdman," here's a quick summary: Riggan is a movie actor who used to be in this multi million dollar franchise called "Birdman." After wanting to do more diverse projects, Riggan quits the opportunity to do another "Birdman" movie. But this was a failure. Years and years later, Riggan is now scraping the bottom of the barrel. He has decided to do a broadway show. If this show fails, his acting career is basically over. If it succeeds, he can continue. The movie shows that she has a druggie daughter in rehab and that Riggan is divorced. Over the course of the movie, we see the struggles and the things going wrong for this show. The biggest thing that goes wrong is an acclaimed critic basically saying that she'd give a bad review no matter how good the show is and throughout the movie, the importance of a review to a show is shown to be very vital.

The ending of the film very much depends on how the audience perceives the film. Riggan gets depressed after finding out the critic will give a bad review. At the end of the movie, nearing the end of one of the show's performances, Riggan uses a real gun instead of a prop gun to shoot himself. The movie ends with Riggan waking up in the hospital realizing he had shot himself in the nose instead and that the show was instead given a good review. He realizes that even after succeeding in the show, he can never shake off the image that he is Birdman. At the end, he embraces that he is Birdman.

The ending is vague and there are multiple interpretations on the ending. Here's my interpretation to fit the theory: After he shot himself, he indeed did shot himself in the nose. But instead of waking up to see his show being given a good review, he wakes up to see that there is still a bad review. He realizes that since the show was a failure, his image of being Birdman will never go away.

And this is what I believe happens after "Birdman." Since the show fails, he quits acting. And since he was low on money, he has to resort to a different job to make money: a Contractor. To hide shame and to prevent from being recognized, he changes his full name from Riggan Thomson to Adrian Toomes. Since he was already divorced, he decides to remarry to a woman named Doris which eventually allows them to have a daughter, Liz Toomes. Even in the movie "Birdman," we see Riggan as a very hot tempered guy who oppresses his emotions. In the movie "Spider-Man: Homecoming," we see Adrian Toomes be very mad in many scenes.

In order for this theory to work, the Birdman would have to take place prior to 2012's "The Avengers" movie which takes place in 2009 because of "Spider-Man: Homecoming" changing the timeline :/

As a contractor, the now Adrian Toomes gets the city contract to salvage much of the stuff from the invasion in "The Avengers." After getting screwed over by Damage Control. He and a couple colleagues decide to keep the stuff salvaged and weaponize it.

And here's the interesting part, the reason why Adrian Toomes decides to become the Vulture is because he used to play the superhero character Birdman! The movie Homecoming never once explains why, out of all the ways to steal, he decided became a persona named the Vulture. And obviously since he didn't want to get recognized and to put bad to the Birdman name, he took the name the Vulture. But this doesn't really make a difference since the name "The Vulture" never once comes up in Homecoming.