Robert Downey Jr. has turned down the opportunity to reprise his role as Tony Stark/Iron Man in the latest Marvel blockbuster, “Deadpool & Wolverine.” The film’s co-writers, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, revealed in an interview with IndieWire that they had written a scene featuring Downey alongside Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan.
The scene in question would have involved Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool pitching himself to join the Avengers. While Favreau’s character remained in the final cut, Downey’s absence is now understood to be due to his upcoming return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a surprising new role as Doctor Doom.
“We had wanted him to do a cameo. We had written that scene [to start] with Happy and Downey,” Wernick explained. The writers were unaware of Downey’s plans with Marvel at the time of writing.
In addition to the Downey cameo, the writers had considered an even more ambitious idea involving all six original Avengers. This concept, which never made it to the script, would have featured Deadpool being rejected by the team and subsequently “dressing down” each Avenger in his characteristic style.
Downey is set to return to the Marvel universe as Doctor Doom in the upcoming films “Avengers: Doomsday” (2026) and “Avengers: Secret Wars” (2027), both to be directed by the Russo Brothers.