Looking at how comic book adaptations have been Hollywood’s bread-and-butter for over 20 years and counting, it’s very easy to forget that plenty of powerful producers and major studios has exceedingly little interest in superhero cinema prior to the post-millennium boom. Even Iron Man, which ultimately changed the industry forever, failed to escape development hell for years.
Universal were the first to try and tackle Tony Stark’s live-action introduction back in 1990, but by the time Kevin Feige tasked Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. to kick off the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the property had bounded to 20th Century Fox and then onto New Line Cinema, with countless creative talents circling the project at one stage or another.
Warner Bros. subsidiary New Line came closer than the rest, though, with Nick Cassavetes attached to direct for an intended 2006 release with a script from David Hayter. However, it was claimed recently that one of the reasons Iron Man was dropped came from then-studio head Bob Shaye, who thought the entire concept was nonsensical because the title hero would be too heavy to fly.
Naturally, the hilarious revelation being made public ignited plenty of eye-rolling from Marvel fans on Reddit, many of whom aren’t surprised a WB-owned label would fundamentally misunderstand the entire point of an iconic favorite.
It would be the understatement of the century to say that things worked out pretty well in the end for the upstart Marvel Studios once Iron Man finally hit the big screen, and the majority of the comments range from the incredulous to the hilarious as MCU maniacs pile on to blast the decision makers for allowing the option on the rights to lapse for something so dumb.