Don Cheadle Reveals Plans For The Cancelled War Machine Movie

One of the things I love about the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that, like the comics on which it’s based, it’s chock full of great supporting characters. In fact, True Believers could make valid arguments for some being able to carry their own movie – namely War Machine.

Having first debuted the character of James Rhodes on the big screen with the original Iron Man flick when Terrence Howard was doing his thing, “Rhodey” was then recast when Don Cheadle began running with the torch in Iron Man 2. Since then, Cheadle has suited up as War Machine (or Iron Patriot) in each subsequent MCU appearance.

Believe it or not, a film focused squarely on Tony Stark’s best buddy almost came to fruition a few years back. In fact, eventual Black Panther co-screenwriter Joe Robert Cole had been enlisted to pen the screenplay. But as things sometimes happen in Hollywood, this project just didn’t get off the ground.

In a recent discussion with Entertainment Weekly, Cheadle himself let everyone know what could’ve been:

“We kicked it around a bit. There was definitely going to be a lot of tension between his job as a military man and his allegiances to the code that he swore an oath to uphold, versus the changing world. I think they probably would have run afoul of each other a little bit, but I don’t know if he would have been a straight fugitive, or if he would have become decommissioned. But there was definitely going to be some tension between those two worlds.”

If you’re wondering where this movie would’ve fallen on the timeline, let’s not forget the aforementioned Joe Robert Cole’s words from last year:

“At that meeting, they also said they were thinking of doing a War Machine movie. I pitched a concept and won that job to write the script but they decided, based on what Iron Man 3 was going to be, they weren’t going to do War Machine anymore. But they asked if I’d be interested in joining their writer’s program instead.”

In my view, just because one attempt at a War Machine movie fell through, that doesn’t mean the studio couldn’t take another swing at it. Obviously, that’s contingent on whether Rhodey comes out of Avengers: Endgame alive, but it wouldn’t hurt to have one iron-suited hero around just in case Robert Downey Jr. does indeed exit with the rest of the old guard.