The Original IRON MAN Movie Plan Before Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. Was Wild

It's hard to imagine anyone other than Robert Downey Jr.playing Tony Stark. His performance in Iron Man didn't just launch the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it completely changed the superhero movie landscape.

But before Jon Favreaustepped in to direct and Downey suited up, Marvel's armored Avenger was headed in a very different direction.

The road to the big screen was a long one for Iron Man. Universal first picked up the film rights in the early 1990s, and after bouncing between studios for years, the project eventually landed at New Line Cinema.

By 2004, the studio had a very different vision for the character, complete with a different creative team, different cast, and a story that would've taken Tony Stark down a much darker path.

At the time, New Line was developing the film from a script by David Hayter, along with Smallville’s Al Gough and Miles Millar.

Nick Cassavetes was attached to direct, and the cast being assembled was fascinating. Tom Cruise was circling the role of Tony Stark, Jamie Foxx was being eyed to play James Rhodes, and Famke Janssen was in talks for Bethany Cabe.

Cruise eventually passed on the project, and Hugh Jackman was briefly approached before the entire film was reworked into the version that ultimately became Favreau's Iron Man.

While the final 2008 movie shares some DNA with this early concept, the original story took some big interesting swings.

The treatment opened with Tony Stark as a brilliant inventor who had completely distanced himself from his family's weapons empire.

“Genius inventor Tony Stark is the estranged son of weapons manufacturer Howard Stark, who blames Tony for his mother’s death in a boating accident. Tony refuses to build weapons and leaves his father’s conglomerate, Stark Ironworks, to start his own company, Stark Innovations, whose greatest achievement is the Repulsor technology primed to revolutionize space flight.

“Tony’s best friend, engineer James Rhodes, reluctantly decides not to accompany him and instead becomes Howard’s chief of security, straining their friendship.”

Instead of being captured overseas like in the finished film, Tony's troubles begin after his former girlfriend, Homeland Security agent Bethany Cabe, uncovers evidence that someone is selling advanced weapons built from his technology.

“Tony’s ex-girlfriend, Homeland Security agent Bethany Cabe, confronts him with newly-acquired evidence that someone is arming America’s political rivals with advanced weapons technology based on his designs.

“Tony accuses Howard’s business partner, Justin Hammer, of stealing his creations, and is later targeted by a drone and severely wounded, forcing him to wear an advanced chestplate to prevent heart failure.

“Rhodes realizes Tony was right about Hammer and is in danger, and extracts him to a secret workshop at Catskills Mountains, where Tony and Rhodes work together to build an advanced prototype exoskeleton.

“Meanwhile, Cabe is captured and tortured by Hammer after learning that Stark Ironworks is financing criminal organization Rising Dawn, but Tony finds and rescues her with his prototype.”

One of the biggest surprises in this version is that Howard Stark wasn't the inspirational father figure Marvel fans eventually came to know. Instead, he was the movie's true villain.

“Tony attempts to alert his father of Hammer’s crimes, only to learn that Howard is the true mastermind behind the conspiracy and is planning to assassinate the President of the United States at the behest of his associate, corrupt Vice-President Peter Benton, who will then authorize the use of Stark Ironworks' Repulsor-based weaponry by the U.S. military to subjugate foreign countries, as part of a larger masterplan to subjugate the entire planet.

‘Howard intends to disable the President's Stark-issued "biochip" that allows the Secret Service to track him, causing a fatal heart attack.”

Things only spiral further from there. “Tony survives an assassination attempt by Howard and disables the satellite that Howard would use to sabotage the President's biochip, but his suit is damaged by the altitute and crash-lands in the ocean, allowing Rising Dawn to capture Tony and study his design before he rescued by Bethany and Rhodes.

“Tony informs the President of Howard’s crimes, but is despondent when the President orders an airstrike on Howard’s yacht, blaming himself for his father’s death.”

Of course, Howard isn't actually dead. The final act escalates into a full-scale assault on Washington, D.C., with Tony finally earning the name Iron Man before facing an unexpected armored enemy.

“Exposed, Rising Dawn attacks Washington, D.C. with advanced Repulsor-based weaponry provided by Howard. Bethany and Rhodes encourage Tony to fight on, and Tony confesses his feelings for Bethany before joining the battle against Rising Dawn in a heavily armed suit, earning him the designation “Iron Man” from the military.

“Tony manages to lure Rising Dawn into a trap and disables their weapons with a secret kill switch he had installed in all his designs, allowing the military to subdue them.

“While he is away, his radio's signal is traced to the workshop, which is attacked by the mysterious War Machine, who kidnaps Bethany to lure Tony into a confrontation at Stark Ironworks's headquarters in Los Angeles.”

Then comes the big twist. “Arriving there, Tony learns that Howard is War Machine, having survived the yacht’s explosion and develop his own suit based on Tony’s design.

“Howard kills Bethany, leading to a vicious battle in which Tony defeats him, but chooses to spare him. Refusing to accept defeat, Howard attempts to kill Tony with a missile, but it malfunctions, killing him instead.

“Tony replaces Howard as CEO of Stark Ironworks, which he rebrands as “Stark Industries” and turns into a humanitarian organization. Hammer is arrested and provides Homeland Security with information on which terrorist organizations Howard armed as part of his plan.

“Rhodes intercepts the intel, and Tony sets out to honor Bethany’s memory by dismantling the organizations and destroying the weapons he inadvertently created, embracing the mantle of Iron Man.”

Reading through that treatment today feels like peeking into an alternate Marvel timeline. You can spot several ideas that eventually found their way into the MCU, including Tony relying on a chest device to stay alive, building an armored suit in secret, Justin Hammer serving as an antagonist, and Stark wrestling with the consequences of the weapons and technology tied to his name.

At the same time, the differences are impossible to ignore. Howard Stark becoming a power-hungry supervillain, War Machine being his alter ego, a conspiracy involving the Vice President, and a climactic battle in Washington all would've created a very different franchise.

In the end, Cruise passed, the project was reimagined, Favreau climbed aboard, and Marvel made the risky decision to cast Downey despite concerns about his past.

The rest is movie history. It's fun to wonder what this earlier version might've looked like on screen, but it's also a great reminder that sometimes the best thing to happen to a movie is starting over.

Without that creative reset, the MCU as we know it might've never existed.