Casting speculations have surrounded every new project from Marvel Studios ever since they revealed they will launch their cinematic universe with an Iron Man film. When Hugh Jackman’s appearance in Deadpool 3 was confirmed, for example, some of them truly worked out. The majority are just content for Reddit threads. That largely holds true for a very well-liked casting rumor that surfaced whenever we attempted to view the Marvel films chronologically.
The rumor goes that in the first Iron Man film, Tom Cruise was meant to play Tony Stark. Because of how persistent the idea was, fans believed they would see a Tom Cruise-portrayed Iron Man in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Kevin Feige has revealed to us why Cruise was never cast in the role.
We have been delving thoroughly into MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios, an outstanding new book. Feige also discussed the reason why Tom Cruise’s role as rich playboy philanthropist Tony Stark didn’t work out in this specific line. Like in the book:
Ten years earlier, when the Iron Man rights were at 20th Century Fox, Tom Cruise, then thirty-four, had flirted with the idea of playing Stark. According to Feige, however, 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.
Though there are a ton of future Marvel films to concentrate on, it’s always entertaining to look back and consider what might have been in the MCU. When Iron Man was about to go into production, where was Tom Cruise? Admittedly, he has been a huge star practically from the beginning. And he’s relished the highs and lows. However, Cruise was coming off of Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds and the underappreciated Mission: Impossible 3 (2006)—not the one in which he hurt himself—and the lukewarm Lions for Lambs when Marvel Studios was casting Tony Stark. That’s why he set his pricing so high.
Right now, the only person we can picture playing Tony Stark is Robert Downey Jr. Because they adore him in the role, fans celebrated the date in the MCU when Stark gave his life to stop Thanos on social media. However, people’s interest in Cruise will always be there.
It’s so much so that we’re still holding out hope that Cruise may appear in Avengers: Secret Wars as an Iron Man version. Still, it appears that the majority of the heroes that could make an appearance in Secret Wars are reimaginings of characters that have already appeared in Marvel films, such as Ghost Rider played by Nicolas Cage or Daredevil played by Ben Affleck.
