Robert Downey Jr turned down Iron Man cameo in Deadpool & Wolverine despite ‘hard press’ from Ryan Reynolds

‘We didn’t know about Doctor Doom,’ said ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ screenwriters

Deadpool & Wolverine co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have revealed that Robert Downey Jr was the “only” star to turn down a cameo in the movie.

Two weeks ago, it was revealed at ComicCon that the Iron Man star, whose character was killed off in Avengers: Endgame, would return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) as its next big supervillain, Dr Doom.

Reese and Wernick told IndieWire that they were unaware of the new casting and had approached Downey to appear in Ryan Reynolds’s third Deadpool film as Iron Man.

“Behind the scenes, we didn’t know about the Doctor Doom [casting],” Wernick said. “And there’s no way he was going to do both. 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.”

Reese said the actor “was the only ‘no’ we’ve ever gotten, I think, in terms of people just saying, ‘Hey, I don’t want to do it.’”

“I mean, look, we would’ve loved to have Downey,” Reese added. “But, at the same time, I think Marvel had this ace in their hole, which is he’s about to come back in this different character. So, to have him be Tony Stark? Knowing that Doctor Doom was coming on the heels of that? It just didn’t make sense.”

Robert Downey Jr was announced as Doctor Doom at San Diego Comic-Con in July (Getty Images)

Downey will return to the MCU in the Avengers films Doomsday, set to release in 2026, and Secret Wars, scheduled for 2027.

The actor’s paycheck for the role has allegedly been revealed, with Variety reporting that the actor will be paid upwards of $80m (£62.7m) for his Doctor Doom appearance.

Meanwhile, Deadpool & Wolverine is on track to become the highest-grossing film of the year and has already set a box office record for R-rated movies.

It stars Reynolds as Deadpool/Wade Wilson with Hugh Jackman returning as Wolverine after his character was killed off in Logan in 2017.

Directed by Night at the Museum helmer Shawn Levy, it follows the superheroes as they begrudgingly team up to defeat a threat to their home universe.

Critics have been divided in their reviews, with The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey calling it a “tedious and annoying corporate merger of a film,” and assigning it a paltry two stars.