‘Doctor Strange 2’ head writer tried to get Tom Cruise in as an alternate Iron Man

While the internet was parading around the idea of Tom Cruise as Iron Man in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it seems even head writer Michael Waldron was too.

Fan theories had been flowing in around potential cameos for Doctor Strange 2, and it’s the fan-built Tom Cruise one that has led to the most disappointment upon the Multiverse of Madness being summoned into theaters.

Michael Waldron has shared the disappointment fans had and spoke to Rolling Stone on those rumors of Cruise showing up as a Tony Stark variant, saying that there was never any footage of Cruise in the first place.

“Yeah, that was totally made up. I mean, there’s no cut footage of Tom Cruise! But I love Tom Cruise, and I said to [Marvel Studios president] Kevin [Feige]  at one point, I was like, “could we get Tom Cruise’s Iron Man?” I remember reading about that in Ain’t It Cool News back in the day, that Tom Cruise was going to be Iron Man.”

Waldron was probed further and elaborated on the whole fan-casting.

Rolling Stone: So it’s totally made up by the fans — but you also tried to make it up, is what you’re saying?
Waldron: Yeah, exactly. As it was being talked about online, I was like, Yeah, that’d be cool!

RS: So what did Kevin say when you asked him that?
Waldron: Well, I mean, he was shooting Mission Impossible 7 and 8.  

RS: So to be totally clear, did anyone reach out to Tom Cruise?
Waldron: I don’t believe so. I just don’t think it was ever an option, because of availability.

The aforementioned “footage” saw Cruise play what looked to be a variant of the Superior Iron Man, a version of the hero which took the ego to the nth degree. Fans speculated this version had defeated Thanos and also made working Ultron bots for the Illuminati. But as we know now, it was a variant of Doctor Strange who defeated the Mad Titan in Earth-838.

It’s an interesting parallel to the leaked footage of Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man, an entire year before Spider-Man: No Way Home hit cinemas. That ended up being real, with it part of footage from the climax of No Way Home.

For now, Marvel diehards will just have to make do with a Doctor Strange film that features the return of Patrick Stewart as Professor X, Anson Mount as Black Bolt, and the surprise casting of John Krasinski as Reed Richards.

Doctor Strange 2 is currently in cinemas.