Actors and actresses who turned down iconic roles | Tom Cruise, Emma Watson, Emily Blunt and more

It might come as a surprise that back in the early 2000s, when the possibility of bringing Marvel’s Iron Man to the big screen was still in planning mode, it was Tom Cruise who was first approached to play Tony Stark.

In fact, Cruise had been approached way back in the ’90s about the role, when the project was headed by a different film company, a different producer and different writers, per International Gaming Network Entertainment (IGN).

In a 2004 interview with Empire magazine, Cruise said he was keen on playing the legendary Iron Man.

Per the report, Cruise was “still working on a deal to don the Iron Man’s armour,” at the time.

Eventually, plans for the project fell through and were picked up, dropped, and picked up again by a new studio (Paramount Pictures), a new producer, and new writers.

As a “Paramount man”, having starred in the studio’s Mission Impossible franchise and Top Gun, Cruise was a natural first-pick for the role, but things didn’t go to plan when the actor entered discussions.

“[Marvel Studios] came to me at a certain point,” Cruise revealed in a 2005 interview with IGN.

“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 it’s gonna be something special,” he said.

“And as it was lining up, it just didn’t feel to me like it was gonna work. I need to be able to make decisions and make the film as great as it can be, and it just didn’t go down that road that way.”

The first Iron Man movie finally hit screens in 2008, and the role has now made its star, Robert Downey Jr, millions.

In the third installment of the franchise, Downey Jr made US$70 million (approx. $105.7 million).

On top of that, the film series opened up further opportunities for Downey Jr to star in The Avengers films, with the latest instalment, Avengers: Endgame, earning him a wage of US$75 million (approx. $113 million).

But in 2018, Cruise said he was in no way bitter about the loss.

“I love Robert Downey Jr,” he told Comicbook.com. “I can’t imagine anyone else in that role, and I think it’s perfect for him.”