Tom Cruise and Iron Man started trending on Twitter after Marvel released the second Doctor Strange 2 trailer. The clip reveals two big Multiverse of Madness cameos, including one that could be a variant of Iron Man from a different reality. This Iron Man is one who has often been associated with Tom Cruise in MCU leaks.
But there’s a different explanation for that Iron Man-like figure in the trailer, which we’ve already explained. However, the Tom Cruise rumors aren’t about to die down anytime soon. It’s quite the opposite, actually. But there’s a new twist that fans will be excited to hear, and it’s one that doesn’t involve a cameo in Doctor Strange 2.
Before we proceed, we’ll warn you that big spoilers might follow below.
The No Way Home precedent
Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield were the worst-kept secrets of Spider-Man: No Way Home. They leaked over and over in the months preceding the film’s release, to the point where we had conclusive evidence that the two actors were in the movie. Sony and Marvel never confirmed those rumors. Instead, they went to great lengths to hide the cameos.
But Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is something else. This will be a multiverse movie that will feature a ton of cameos, two of which Marvel just confirmed. That’s Patrick Stewart’s Professor X and a new Captain Marvel variant.
The latter isn’t entirely confirmed, however. And some fans hope that the mysterious superhero who appeared in the trailer is actually Tom Cruise’s MCU debut as Superior Iron Man. After all, the same trailer gives us friendly Ultron drones. Only an Iron Man variant would create such an army.
Marvel seems ready to confirm some of the surprises in an effort to protect the others. And it’s likely that many of these cameos will not have roles as significant as Maguire and Garfield in No Way Home. Whatever the case, Doctor Strange 2 will feature a lot more cameos than No Way Home, so it’s easy for the studio to give fans some morsels of content while promoting the movie.
Why fans want Tom Cruise to be Iron Man
With that in mind, there is a good reason why MCU fans want Tom Cruise to play a variant of Tony Stark.
Marvel originally wanted Cruise to play Iron Man in the early days of the MCU. Needless to say, the studio ended up going in a different direction. It’s all thanks to Robert Downey Jr. that the MCU thrived on the back of Iron Man. RDJ transformed the character into one of the most loved superheroes out there. But it only happened because Tom Cruise passed on the role.
“It’s not happening,” Cruise said in an interview about being offered the Iron Mall role.
“Not with me, no … They came to me at a certain point and, when I do something, I wanna do it right. If I commit to something, it has to be done in a way that I know it’s gonna be something special. And as it was lining up, it just didn’t feel to me like it was gonna work. I need to be able to make decisions and make the film as great as it can be, and it just didn’t go down that road that way.”
Tom Cruise might have decided against playing Iron Man years before the MCU became the most successful superhero franchise in film and television history. But that might change in the near future. And that’s where things get interesting.
While most Tom Cruise rumors concern an Iron Man cameo in Doctor Strange 2, the actor might play someone else in the MCU. And it’s unclear when it’ll happen.
The MCU’s Tom Cruise plot twist
YouTuber and Marvel insider Grace Randolph discussed the new Doctor Strange 2 trailer on Twitter, saying that someone in the industry “posed an interesting, knowing question:” What if Tom Cruise ISN’T playing Tony Stark in the MCU?
In a reply that followed, Randolph said that she is “confident” Tom Cruise is in the MCU. But she isn’t sure where he will appear or which character he might play.
If true, that changes everything.
Regardless of whether or not we see Tom Cruise in Multiverse of Madness, he might appear in the MCU down the road as a different character. That’s certainly an exciting development.
The tweets above followed a separate tweet from Randolph. She made it clear that the mysterious superhero in the new Doctor Strange 2 trailer is not Cruise’s Iron Man.
Instead, we’re looking at a very specific Captain Marvel variant. It’s not Teyonah Parris’s Monica Rambeau, but her mother, Mara Rambeau (Lashana Lynch).
Separately, rumors do say that RDJ might also cameo in Doctor Strange 2. As much as fans might want to see Cruise in the Iron Man armor, they still prefer the real thing.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness opens on May 6th. It’ll be interesting to see what other cameos Marvel confirms before then and how often the Tom Cruise Iron Man rumor might resurface.
