'Wednesday' creators reveal shocking truth about early 'Iron Man' plans with Tom Cruise

Wednesday creators recently shared that they once spent a year on an Iron Man script with Tom Cruise eyed for Tony Stark.

Miles Miller and Alfred Gough, the showrunners of the Wednesday series, appeared on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, where they revealed they worked on an Iron Man script years before Robert Downey Jr. played the role and that Cruise was once suggested as a possible choice for Tony Stark's role.

Recalling how work on Iron Man began, Gough shared, "[Marvel Studios founder] Avi Arad had come to us after [we wrote the story on] Spider-Man 2.”

"After Spider-Man 2, they say, 'guys, we've got another crown jewel – which is Iron Man,'" Miller, the fellow creator, added.

For the unversed, back then, Marvel Studios was not the billion-dollar company it is today. Iron Man was pitched at a small office in Avi Arad’s Toy Biz company but there was a problem that led to the script being dropped and instead of Marvel, New Line Cinema owned the rights to make an Iron Man movie, similar to how Sony owned the film rights to Spider-Man.

Gough quipped, "To be honest with you, I hadn't heard of Iron Man. Avi said, 'Perfect. Here's what he is: he's a billionaire who sells weapons, he's got an alcohol problem. There was an accident, now he's trying to make it work, make it better.”

"So, we did a draft, several drafts. We worked on that for probably a year. We went in with Kevin [Feige] and Avi, and I guess [New Line Cinema founder Robert Shaye] had read it. It's an interesting thing with generations trying to still connect with what a superhero is. He got all tied up that Iron Man could fly, because Superman could fly… we all sort of walked out of the meeting like, 'We don't think this is going to happen here,’” he remembered.

Notably, Marvel Studios later got back the rights to Iron Man, and Downey Jr. joined the MCU to play Tony Stark.

However, things could have been very different if New Line had gotten their first choice, as Miller noted, "They wanted Tom Cruise, and I think Cruise was interested."