12 Actors Who Stupidly Turned Down Comic Book Movies
3. Tom Cruise Turned Down Iron Man
For a long time it looked like Tom Cruise was going to star in Iron Man before someone had the frankly brilliant idea of using Robert Downey Junior's real life experience with substance abuse and egotistic behaviour inform a portrayal of Tony Stark. Cruise was even originally pegged to co-produce the film after Kevin Feige took advantage of the comic book love after Sam Raimi's Spider-Man to confirm he was talking to Cruise:
There have been discussions (with Cruise) over the last several years and there are a number of factors involved. All we know is that were putting all the pieces in place and then well find the best Tony Stark that we can get.
Cruise was apparently very interested, but the film took a long old time to come together, and apparently it was the script - which would have featured that ultimately turned him off, since it was terrible:
I dont know. It just they came to me at a certain point and when I do something, I wanna do it right. If I commit to something, it has to be done in a way that I know its gonna be something special. And as it was lining up, it just didnt feel to me like it was gonna work.
