You'll Never Guess Who Was Supposed to Be Iron Man Instead of Downey Jr.

As the saying goes, it takes two to tango. If instead of a dance, we're talking about one of the most successful movies in history that made the Marvel Cinematic Universe what it is today, the rule still applies: despite far more people being involved in the process, the overwhelming success of the Iron Man franchise has two men to thank.

The combined genius of Kevin Feige and Robert Downey Jr. forever changed the movie industry with one huge entry — the first Iron Man.

Back then, the superhero genre was not nearly as huge as it is today, but an almost-fledging director and a recovering fallen star actor did the impossible, and the rest is now history.

Robert Downey Jr.'s performance as Tony Stark is nothing short of iconic at this point. No one in the world can imagine anyone else playing this role, as Robert is forever cemented as THE Iron Man.

But little did we all know that were it not for Kevin Feige's first pick declining his offer, we would've had a very different Stark.

Recently, during the graduation ceremony at the University of Southern California, Kevin Feige revealed who was his first pick for the role — and trust us, you would've never guessed it out of the blue. It's impossible to both guess and imagine.

"We culled down our list, we pinpointed the right guy, and we extended an offer to our top choice – an actor who checked all of those boxes and who we were confident would be a huge hit. And his name, of course, was Clive Owen," shared the director.

Clive Owen is, of course, a brilliant actor, there's no doubt about that. The man's got dozens of nominations and awards, and he's totally among the top dogs of the movie industry, but…

Picturing him play Iron Man just feels so wrong on every possible level now! No offense to his genius; we just don't think anyone could've played Tony Stark better than Downey Jr.

Fortunately, Clive Owen straight-up refused the offer. He was not interested in doing a comic book adaptation in the slightest, as Feige recalls, and didn't want to waste anyone's time.

Thanks to that, Robert Downey Jr. got a shot at auditioning and nailed it… And once again, the rest is now history. History of phenomenal success.

Source: The Direct