One of the biggest stories in entertainment news right now – and rightfully so – is Robert Downey Jr.’s return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel did a fantastic job at the San Diego Comic-Con, and because of this news bomb, everyone is talking about Downey and the MCU’s future, which seems exciting once again.

But before this fateful decision, which came as a result of Jonathan Majors being fired as Kang, after which Marvel decided not to retain Kang and replace Majors, the future of Downey’s MCU career looked a lot different, as his return was supposed to be executed in a completely different manner.

Namely, it was recently revealed that Robert Downey Jr. was slated to return for a cameo appearance in Deadpool & Wolverine, but after he was cast as Doctor Doom, this idea was ultimately scrapped and Downey did not appear in the currently most-watched movie around the world!

In an interview given to IndieWire, Deadpool & Wolverine writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick revealed some interesting details about the movie’s production, and one of the most important scoops from that interview is the revelation that Robert Downey Jr. was supposed to cameo in the movie, but this was changed when the writers found out about Doctor Doom:

IndieWire: In the scene with Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan, did you want Robert Downey Jr. in that scene, too? Or did you know when writing it he was going to play Doctor Doom?

Paul Wernick: We had wanted him to do a cameo. We had written that scene [to start] with Happy and Downey.

Rhett Reese: Ryan Reynolds read the scene with both of them, so in the hopes we could get Downey. But he also wanted Favreau, because they’re a great combo, and they were all in the scene together.

Wernick: 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.

Since we’ll never see Downey in “Deadpool & Wolverine,” what was going to be his role or punchline?

Reese: It was a version of what you saw in the sense that he 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.

Wernick: We haven’t told anybody this, but there was a version of that scene very, very early on that wasn’t written, but was conceived, that had all the Avengers in the room. And Wade was rejected and then he dressed all the Avengers down in a way only Deadpool could do.

Reese: That’s a little bit of a scoop, but he was going to get mad and basically attack each one of them in a vicious kind of way.