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There's a joke in Deadpool 2 about Fox only being able to afford one X-Men character in Colossus, and it seems that holds true for Deadpool & Wolverine - but with the Avengers. While Thor did appear (via a repurposed scene from Thor: The Dark World), it's now been revealed the makers of Deadpool & Wolverine were angling to have Robert Downey Jr. appear - not as his new MCU character Doctor Doom, but as his original character, Iron Man.

Shades of Chris Evans playing his old Marvel character Human Torch, huh?

According to screenwriters Paul Wernick and Rehett Reese, Marvel Studios' Deadpool & Wolverine was planning to have Robert Downey Jr. make an appearance in the film as Tony Stark/Iron Man - with the plans going so far as being in a draft of the script. Before you point out the continuity era, this would have been in an early part of the film taking place before Avengers: Infinity War where Deadpool interviews for a job in the Avengers with Jon Favreau's Happy Hogan.

As they revealed, it was originally intended to be Hogan and Stark.

"Behind the scenes, we didn't know about the Doctor Doom. And there’s no way he was going to do both," Werneck tells IndieWire. "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."

But that it got so far as scripting and that RDJ agreed to at least consider the idea and read the script means it wasn't a 'no' from the start.

Popverse has assembled everything you need to know about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, from our MCU watch order to a guide to upcoming Marvel movies and TV shows. Plus, we've taken the time to rank the entire MCU and compile the biggest outstanding questions from Marvel's connected films. Enjoy.