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It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Robert Downey Jr. playing Iron Man, but if things had gone differently, it would’ve been Tom Cruise under the armor. In 1999, the Warner Bros.-owned New Line Cinema acquired Iron Man’s film rights from Marvel Entertainment, but had a hard time getting the film off the ground - even with Tom Cruise in the cockpit. Hoping to move the project in the right direction, Marvel’s Avi Arad and Kevin Feige approached Al Gough and Miles Millar, the writing duo who had previously touched up Spider-Man 2’s story treatment and were known for their work on Smallville.

“Avi Arad had come to us after Spider-Man 2,” Al Gough says during an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, dating this to 2004 or after. “After Spider-Man 2, [Kevin Feige and Avi Arad] said, ‘Guys, we’ve got another crown jewel, which is Iron Man.’ And it was New Line at the time,” Miles Millar adds.

“It was at New Line, and to be honest with you, I hadn’t heard of Iron Man,” Gough continues. “And Avi goes, ‘Perfect. Here’s what he is. He’s a billionaire who sells weapons. He’s got an alcohol problem, and there’s an accident, and now he’s trying to make it better.’ So, we thought, 'Oh, this is interesting.' It wasn’t another teen superhero, which, after Smallville and Spider-Man, we were like, ‘Oh, okay!’ So, we did a draft. Several drafts. We worked on that for probably a year.”

“We went in with Kevin and Avi, and I guess [New Line Cinema founder] Bob Shaye at the time had read it,” Gough says.

“It’s an interesting thing with generations trying to still connect with what a superhero is, and [Bob Shaye] got all tied up that Iron Man could fly. He goes, ‘Because Superman can fly. Can he just leap from building to building?’ And we all sort of all walked out of that meeting and we’re like, ‘We don’t think this is going to happen here.’”

Had the project gone forward, Tom Cruise was the leading candidate to play Tony Stark. “They wanted Tom Cruise. And I think that Cruise was interested,” Millar says.

However, the project continued to stall, until Marvel Studios regained the rights to the character, resulting in the 2008 film we all know and love.

“To Kevin and Avi’s great credit, they got the character back and did the version that’s fantastic,” Gough says. “Once they did that, our script was dead,” Millar recalls. “It stayed at New Line,” Gough adds.

Just think, this could’ve created an interesting ripple effect where Tom Cruise would be playing Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday next year.

Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:

• How to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe in release or chronological order
• The best Marvel Comics stories of all time
• All the MCU movies ranked from best to worst
• Our weekly Marvel insider's column, Marvel Matters