Downey declined to return as Iron Man after reading the scene.
Deadpool & Wolverine screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick revealed that they scrapped an intended Iron Man cameo after Robert Downey Jr. read the scene and declined to participate.
Despite Deadpool & Wolverine delighting Marvel fans and even (most) critics, its aggressive brand of raunchy meta humor apparently wasn’t to Downey’s liking. “We had wanted him to do a cameo. We had written that [early] scene with Happy and Downey,” Wernick told IndieWire.
Wernick is referring to one of the film’s opening scenes, in which Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) is turned down for a spot on the Avengers’ team by Tony Stark’s assistant, Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau). Originally, the scene was written to feature both Favreau and Downey. Reynolds, who receives the screenplay’s top writing credit, was apparently dead-set on netting Downey.
“Ryan Reynolds wrote the scene with both of them, so in the hopes we could get Downey,” Reese explained. “But he also wanted Favreau, because they’re a great combo, and they were all in the scene together.”
“Ryan gave him the hard press,” Wernick noted, adding that “Downey read the scenes” alongside Favreau and Reynolds. But ultimately, the actor decided not to reprise his iconic role.
Everything came into focus two days after Deadpool & Wolverine hit theaters, when Downey dramatically revealed his return to the MCU as Doctor Doom in the fifth and sixth Avengers sequels. “Behind the scenes, we didn’t know about the Doctor Doom [news],” Wernick said. “And there’s no way [Downey] was going to do both.”
A plan to get all six of the original Avengers—Iron Man, the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner)—into the scene was similarly scuttled. “Wade was rejected, and then he dressed all the Avengers down in a way only Deadpool could do,” Wernick said of the idea.
Presumably, the writers figured that none of those stars (including Reynolds’ ex-wife, Johansson) would return only to be verbally "attack[ed] in a vicious kind of way,” Reese surmised.
“We would’ve loved to have Downey,” Reese concluded. “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.”
Deadpool & Wolverine has amassed a remarkable $903 million at the worldwide box office to date. It only needs to gross about $160 million more to become the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time.
