One of the biggest rumors surrounding Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was that it’d feature a cameo appearance by Tom Cruise, who, many moons ago, was in the running to play Tony Stark before Robert Downey Jr. ultimately took the role and paved the way for Marvel Studios’ immensely successful cinematic universe. Unfortunately, the actor never ended up making it into the film, and screenwriter Michael Waldron has explained why in a new interview with Rolling Stone, clarifying that the idea would have been a good one but that it was just a rumor and Marvel Studios never actually reached out to Cruise. The theory is that he would have turned it down anyway due to being busy filming his latest Mission: Impossible films. Fans were convinced that Cruise would appear in the new Doctor Strange film as Superior Iron Man, an evil version of the character that wore silver armor.
Fans were totally right about Patrick Stewart appearing as an alternate Professor X, but totally wrong about Tom Cruise — who had once been slated to star as Iron Man years before Robert Downey Jr. — showing up as an alternate Iron Man. Did the fans just totally make up the Tom Cruise thing?
Yeah, that was totally made up. I mean, there’s no cut footage of Tom Cruise! But I love Tom Cruise, and I said to [Marvel Studios president] Kevin [Feige] at one point, I was like, Could we get Tom Cruise’s Iron Man? I remember reading about that in Ain’t It Cool News back in the day, that Tom Cruise was going to be Iron Man.So it’s totally made up by the fans — but you also tried to make it up, is what you’re saying?
Yeah, exactly. As it was being talked about online, I was like, Yeah, that’d be cool!So what did Kevin say when you asked him that?
Well, I mean, he was shooting Mission Impossible 7 and 8.So to be totally clear, did anyone reach out to Tom Cruise?
I don’t believe so. I just don’t think it was ever an option, because of availability.
Source: Rolling Stone