4) Mickey Rourke – Iron Man 2
Iron Man 2 is certainly one of the MCU’s weaker efforts, and that’s mostly because the producers evidently decided to focus a good chunk of it on setting up The Avengers rather than developing the characters in the film. As a result, Mickey Rourke’s Whiplash was thrown to the back, becoming a tonally inconsistent enemy that could go from snapping a guard’s neck to stupidly playing with his bird
According to some revealing interviews the actor did in the months after Iron Man 2’s release, it turns out that he was also paid a measly $250,000 compared to the millions of dollars received by the other cast members, and had to implement changes of his own in order to make his character of Ivan Vanko more interesting.
However, the juiciest detail was Rourke’s revelation that director Jon Favreau was not given much freedom to implement his vision:
“I try to find the moments where [the villain is] not that cliched, evil bad guy and it’s a big fight. I had it on Iron Man and they won. It was going to work for Marvel and them breaking [Jon] Favreau’s balls and wanting just a one-dimensional villain.”
Ouch!
5) Dylan Baker – The Spider-Man Series
When Dylan Baker made his appearance in Spider-Man 2 as the armless Dr. Curt Connors, fans were squealing with delight over the possibility of Connors’ villainous alter ego The Lizard appearing in a future sequel. After all, here he was being set-up as a mentor to Peter, which would contribute to his tragic Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde downfall when he became officially transformed.
Everyone’s hopes were slightly diminished in Spider-Man 3 though when Raimi opted to go with Sandman as the antagonist. Then, as a result of Sony and Avi Arad’s tampering, the director was forced to incorporate Venom into the narrative, a decision that left him disillusioned with the studio and led to him officially dropping out of doing a fourth Spider-Man. As the rest of the main cast followed suit, Baker’s chances of playing The Lizard were tossed out the window.
To add salt to the wounds? The choice of antagonist for The Amazing Spider-Man reboot was none other than The Lizard, leading some fans to theorize that its script was actually worked out of an initial draft for Spider-Man 4, even though Raimi revealed years later that the villains would have been The Vulture and Black Cat (portrayed respectively by John Malkovich and Anne Hathaway).