Robert Downey Jr. Had His Deadpool & Wolverine Cameo Cut for a Good Reason

Deadpool & Wolverine is full of great cameos. But the only thing more interesting than a cameo that did happen is one that didn’t. Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr. had his Deadpool & Wolverine appearance cut for a good reason.

Fresh off of Marvel Studios’ appearance at San Diego Comic-Con, Deadpool & Wolverine co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick sat down with IndieWire to discuss some of the ideas for the film that ended up on the cutting room floor.

“We had wanted him to do a cameo,” said Wernick after being asked about Downey. “Behind the scenes, we didn’t know about the Doctor Doom And there’s no way he was going to do both. And then we said, ‘Oh, Downey doesn’t say ‘no’ to Ryan Reynolds, does he? No one says no to Ryan Reynolds.’ And Ryan gave him the hard press. We wrote scenes, and Downey read the scenes, but what we didn’t know behind the scenes was this Doctor Doom thing.”

Related: Avengers: Doomsday: Does Iron Man Become Doctor Doom in Marvel Comics?

As for where Downey would’ve appeared in Deadpool & Wolverine, Reese made it clear that they had big hopes for the scene where Wade Wilson meets with Happy Hogan. “It was a version of what you saw in the sense that [Tony Stark] rejected Wade. He just said he wasn’t a team player or whatever and questioned his team-player abilities. So it was actually pretty close to the scene that you saw. It just had two guys instead of one. And then Jon [Favreau] was, graciously, connected to it from the start. It worked out great. I mean, look, we would’ve loved to have Downey. But, at the same time, I think Marvel had this ace in their hole, which is he’s about to come back in this different character. So, to have him be Tony Stark? Knowing that Doctor Doom was coming on the heels of that? It just didn’t make sense.”

While a meeting between Iron Man and Deadpool didn’t come to pass due to Downey’s new role, there’s at least the chance that Doctor Doom and the Merc With a Mouth will cross paths in one of the upcoming Avengers films. Maybe the villain is even the cause of Thor’s tears.

Deadpool & Wolverine is in theaters now.