Variety: Robert Downey Jr. Turned Down Iron Man Cameo in ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ After Reading Scene; Writers Also Had an Idea to Bring the Six Original Avengers Back

Story from Variety:

“Deadpool & Wolverine” co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick revealed in an interview with IndieWire that Robert Downey Jr. was courted to reprise Tony Stark/Iron Man for a cameo appearance in Marvel’s latest record-breaking blockbuster. Downey turned the offer down, which now makes sense to the writers as he’s returning to Marvel in a larger and shockingly different capacity as Doctor Doom. No one on the “Deadpool & Wolverine” team knew about Downey’s curveball of a return.

“We had wanted him to do a cameo. We had written that scene [to start] with Happy and Downey,” Wernick said.

The scene in question is towards the beginning of “Deadpool & Wolverine.” Ryan Reynolds’ Merc with a Mouth has used Cable’s time machine to jump over to The Sacred Timeline in order to pitch himself for a spot in the Avengers lineup. Deadpool has a meeting with Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan, who rejects him since Deadpool is too self-centered for the Avengers and just not a team player. The original idea for that scene was to also have Downey’s Tony Stark in the room.

“Ryan Reynolds wrote the scene with both of them, so in the hopes we could get Downey,” Reese said. “But he also wanted Favreau, because they’re a great combo, and they were all in the scene together.”

“Behind the scenes, we didn’t know about the Doctor Doom,” Wernick added. “And there’s no way he was going to do both. And then we said, ‘Oh, Downey doesn’t say “no” to Ryan Reynolds, does he? No one says no to Ryan Reynolds.’ And Ryan gave him the hard press. We wrote scenes, and Downey read the scenes, but what we didn’t know behind the scenes was this Doctor Doom thing.”

Downey passed on the cameo, and Reese said the actor “was the only ‘no’ we’ve ever gotten, I think, in terms of people just saying, ‘Hey, I don’t want to do it.'” Fortunately, Favreau’s Happy Hogan was always a part of the scene, and it could remain intact with just him and Deadpool.

“I mean, look, we would’ve loved to have Downey,” Reese said. “But, at the same time, I think Marvel had this ace in their hole, which is he’s about to come back in this different character. So, to have him be Tony Stark? Knowing that Doctor Doom was coming on the heels of that? It just didn’t make sense.”

Another idea for the scene that was never written was to have not only Downey come back for Deadpool’s interview but for all the original Avengers to return as well: Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor and Chris Evans’ Captain America.

“We haven’t told anybody this, but there was a version of that scene very, very early on that wasn’t written, but was conceived, that had all the Avengers in the room,” Wernick said. “And Wade was rejected and then he dressed all the Avengers down in a way only Deadpool could do.”

“He was going to get mad and basically attack each one of them in a vicious kind of way,” added Reese.

The idea was also floated that Rob Delaney’s Peter would be in the room with Deadpool, which would lead to the joke of Deadpool not being able to pick up Thor’s hammer but Peter being able to do it with ease.

“Peter casually picked up Thor’s Hammer in the background,” Reese said. “That was the joke. Originally, Peter accompanied him there. There were never screenplay pages, but it was the idea of the scene. I remember pitching that he was going to try to get Captain America to swear. I don’t really remember too much else in terms of the details, but yeah, he was going to dress them down to be sure.”

Only Downey got to the point of reading the scene, as there was a brief time when Tony Stark was scripted into it. Downey will be returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the villainous Doctor Doom in 2026’s “Avengers: Doomsday” and 2027’s “Avengers: Secret Wars.” Both films will be directed by the Russo Brothers.

Head over to IndieWire’s website to read Reese and Wernick’s full interview. “Deadpool & Wolverine” is now playing in theaters nationwide.