10 MCU Actors Who Almost Played Different Heroes In Canceled Marvel Movies: Before they were cast in their MCU parts, a lot of Marvel Studios actors were almost cast as other characters in projects that were never made.
- A lot of the actors in the Marvel Cinematic Universe were almost cast in very different parts in cancelled or unfinished Marvel projects from the past. Marvel Comics, which used to be called Timely Comics, started publishing stories in 1939 with the first appearances of the Human Torch robot, Namor, and Captain America.
- Soon after, these stories were turned into live-action movies. This began in 1944 with the Captain America serials from Republic Pictures. Howard the Duck, Marvel’s first live-action movie, came out in 1986. Since then, Marvel’s live-action media has grown by leaps and bounds, but many planned projects have been shelved or never made it to production.
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10 MCU Actors Who Almost Played Different Heroes In Canceled Marvel Movies
Marvel has a lot of unfinished projects, from ones with the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and Doctor Strange to ones with 20th Century Fox’s X-Men series, such as more X-Men Origins movies and a crossover with Fox’s Daredevil and Fantastic Four movies.
Some of these projects probably shouldn’t have been made in the first place, but many of them could have had actors who went on to play lead parts in the MCU and other Marvel superhero franchises. These parts would have had a big impact on many superhero careers long before the MCU. As a result, they have had a big impact on modern superhero movies.
10. Angela Bassett almost played Storm in the Wolverine and the X-Men movie from 1989.
In the first MCU movie, Black Panther, Angela Bassett played Queen Ramonda, who was T’Challa and Shuri’s mother. She later played the Wakandan queen in Avengers: Endgame and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. But before she joined the MCU, Bassett was considered to play Ororo Munroe, also known as Storm, in Wolverine and the X-Men.
This movie from 1989 was supposed to be directed by Kathryn Bigelow, produced by James Cameron, and written by Gary Goldman. Bob Hoskins, who played Roger Rabbit in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” was going to play Wolverine. There was no way that Bassett could have played the strong Storm on screen, even though it was her dream role.
9. Stan Lee wanted to play J. Jonah Jameson in a Spider-Man movie in the 1980s.
In the 1980s, Stan Lee, the founder of Marvel Comics, pushed for a live-action version of Peter Parker’s origin story as Spider-Man. This project would have drastically changed Parker’s story from the comics, but there was some excitement about it going forward.
The movie was going to be directed by Joseph Zito, who was in charge of Invasion USA. Stan Lee wanted to play the editor of the Daily Bugle, J. Jonah Jameson. Even though this choice of casting may have been brilliant, Lee would have had a hard time making cameos in other Marvel movies, which would have changed one of the best MCU traditions from before the series even started.
8. Robert Downey Jr. was wanted for the lead role in 2004’s Deathlok.
They bought the rights to the mechanical Marvel Comics character Deathlok and started making a new movie after the first one didn’t work out. Paul McGuigan, who directed Sherlock and Luke Cage, was interested in this. In a 2009 interview with Gizmodo, he said that he had wanted Robert Downey Jr. to play the lead part.
Later, J. August Richards played Deathlok on Marvel Television’s Agents of SHIELD. Downey Jr. went on to lead the MCU as Tony Stark’s Iron Man, but he might not have been able to do that if he had played Deathlok only four years earlier.
7. X-Men’s Toad Actor, Ray Park, Almost Played Iron Fist In The 2000s
Before the MCU was made, Marvel Studios and Artisan Entertainment worked together to make a live-action movie based on the Marvel Comics character Iron Fist. Variety revealed in 2001 that Ray Park was hired to play the title character, a magical superhero.
This was after he played Toad in 20th Century Fox’s X-Men in 2000. This would have been a much bigger part for Park than his time on X-Men, and it would have introduced people to the Immortal Iron Fist long before Finn Jones took over the role in Marvel TV’s Defenders Saga. This project was held up several times before it was finally put on hold.
6. In Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 4, Bruce Campbell was going to be shown as Mysterio
Bruce Campbell and director Sam Raimi have worked together many times since they made the short films It’s Murder! and Within the Woods. However, their first real collaboration was on the 1981 movie The Evil Dead. Campbell had small parts in all of Raimi’s Spider-Man movies, and he was supposed to come back in Spider-Man 4, where he would have been introduced as the bad guy Mysterio (via Gizmodo).
After Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man took the place of Spider-Man 4, Campbell came back as Pizza Poppa in Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange: The Multiverse of Madness.
5. John Goodman almost played Luke Cage in a Quentin Tarantino movie.
In 1991, the famous director Quentin Tarantino started working on a movie about Luke Cage from Marvel Comics. Cage is the hero of Harlem and has skin that can’t be broken. In an interview with MTV (via Screen Rant), Tarantino said that Laurence Fishburne would have played the lead part in this movie.
Tarantino left Luke Cage to work on Pulp Fiction, so not much is known about his plans for it. It would have been great to see Fishburne in the role years before she played Bill Foster in Ant-Man and the Wasp. Fisburne’s part grew in 2023’s “What If…”, though, so it looks like he will have a bright future in the MCU.
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4. Jamie Foxx wanted to play Luke Cage in the movie by John Singleton
As soon as Tarantino left the Luke Cage project, a new version of the character’s Marvel Comics stories began filming, with John Singleton, who directed Boyz n the Hood and 2 Fast 2 Furious, in charge. A lot of stars, like Tyrese Gibson, Dwayne Johnson, and Isaiah Mustafa, were interested in the part, but in 2014, Jamie Foxx told IGN that he had been asked to play Luke Cage.
In the 2000s, this didn’t work out, but Foxx later played Max Dillon, a.k.a. Electro, in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) and made his MCU debut in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021).
3. Idris Elba Almost Became Luke Cage After Tarantino Left
English star Idris Elba, along with a few other actors, said they would be interested in playing Luke Cage in John Singleton’s project (via Comicbook.com). Elba became famous all over the world for his part as Stringer Bell on HBO’s The Wire from 2002 to 2004.
He would have brought a lot of star power to the role. Elba wasn’t cast as Luke Cage, but he did play Heimdall, the all-seeing Asgardian god, in Thor (2011) and then came back in Thor: The Dark World, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War, and Thor: Love and Thunder, which made it possible for Heimdall to make a return to the MCU.
2. James Franco Almost Had More Than One Man After Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man Trilogy
In the early 2000s, James Franco played a major part in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy. He played Harry Osborn, spider-man’s best friend played by Tobey Maguire and son of Norman Osborn, played by Willem Dafoe. According to Deadline, James Franco was set to play Marvel Comics’ mutant Jamie Madrox in a 20th Century Fox project in 2017.
He would be playing the role for the second time after Eric Dane played it in X-Men: The Last Stand in 2006. This makes it look like Franco is still interested in playing a superhero, but probably not as Multiple Man in the MCU.
1. Emma Frost Was Intended For Sigourney Weaver In Bryan Singer’s X-Men 3
In 2004, Bryan Singer, who had directed X-Men and X2 for Fox, left the production of what was then called X-Men 3. Brett Ratner took over as director and turned the movie into X-Men: The Last Stand.
But Singer said before he left that Sigourney Weaver was supposed to play the mutant Emma Frost in X-Men 3, and Singer himself would have played the part. Not long ago, Sigourney Weaver, a famous actor, would have been a great choice to play Emma Frost. Her later part as Alexandra Reid, the leader of the Hand in Marvel Television’s The Defenders shows this.
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