Tom Cruise nearly playing Iron Man has become the stuff of legend. We know the Mission: Impossible star was attached to one version of the movie before Marvel Studios decided to make the Armoured Avenger the MCU's first superhero, but it's unclear how close his casting came to actually happening.
For many fans, it's one of those dream possibilities which simply never happened. In reality, though, it was actually in the mid-1990s that 20th Century Fox was developing an Iron Man project. Obviously, that was long before Robert Downey Jr. came along!
In the newly released MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios, it's explained that a then-34-year-old Cruise "flirted with the idea of playing [Tony] Stark."
We've never really been given an explanation for why it didn't pan out beyond the project being ahead of its time in terms of the VFX required to bring Iron Man to life. However, Feige reportedly told the authors that "Cruise's asking fee at the time was more than even a profitable studio like Fox was willing to risk on an untested superhero property."
It sounds like the same applied when it came time for Marvel Studios to cast its Iron Man as they reportedly couldn't afford any A-Listers, including Johnny Depp (who was among those rumoured to be in the running). That's why they instead considered the likes of Timothy Olyphant, Jim Caviezel and, eventually, Downey.
There were rumours in late 2021/early 2022 that Marvel Studios wanted Cruise to make a cameo appearance in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as a villainous Iron Man Variant. Addressing those claims last year, writer Michael Waldron said, "Yeah, that was totally made up. I mean, there’s no cut footage of Tom Cruise!"
"I love Tom Cruise, and I said to Kevin Feige at one point, I was like, 'Could we get Tom Cruise’s Iron Man?" he added. "I just don’t think it was ever an option, because of availability."
Whether Cruise could eventually join the MCU remains to be seen. The actor has shown no real interest in playing a superhero and a few minutes wearing an Iron Man suit - minus any crazy practical effects - probably won't appeal to him.
Still, we're not going to rule out the possibility of him showing up in Avengers: Secret Wars as stranger things have definitely happened during this Multiverse Saga.
Do you think Cruise would have been a better Iron Man than Downey?