Robert Downey Jr. may have played another Marvel Character before IRON MAN

Robert Downey Jr. in a role other than Ironman for Marvel? That’s hard to accept.

It seems unlikely that Robert Downey Jr. could have taken on the role of any other Marvel superhero save Iron Man, yet that was once the case.

When discussing the creation of the film and its legacy for the 15th anniversary of the release of Iron Man, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige and Jon Favreau, who directed, produced, and played Happy Hogan in the 2008 movie, admitted that Robert Downey Jr. almost did not play the legendary Marvel hero.

“I remember you had all met with [Downey] already for like Doctor Doom or something on another project,” Favreau, 56, revealed with Feige in an interview published on Youtube Wednesday.

“I think he had come through on maybe Fantastic Four, so everybody sort of knew who he was.” Julian McMahon later played Doom.

“I remember sitting down with the guy, and I was like, ‘He’s got that spark in him in his eye and he’s ready,’” The Mandalorian creator noted.

“That’s when we were in your office, and we were pointing to his headshot, saying, “We got to try to figure this out,” he continued recalling. “That was enough to get us a screentest.”

“Once it was him, that’s when my life got a lot easier because he understood the voice of the character,” Favreau explained.

“And then one by one, people were just signing on board because now it became something interesting.”

Feige, 49, told Favreau, “I remember a shift … when you said, ‘Once Downey was signed and it was done and he was in, you were like, ‘Ah, good. Now I can just make the movie. Now I can just have fun.”

Before his character passed away in Avengers: Endgame (2019), Downey returned to the Iron Man role in nine additional Marvel movies, including two sequels to the 2008 picture that grossed over $585 million worldwide.

“That tone that you and Robert discovered on that movie, I would say became the template in a way for much of what the MCU became,” Feige added.

“I remember on later movies… there were dark days,” he later noted. “I would say to Robert, ‘We wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for you,’ meaning we wouldn’t have a studio if it wasn’t for him. Or you [Favreau].”