While it’s impossible to imagine anyone other than Robert Downey Jr. playing the role of Tony Stark/Iron Man on the big screen, a feature film adaptation of the Iron Man comics was in the works for years before the Marvel Cinematic Universe ever existed. During that time, one actor who was considered for the role was none other than Tom Cruise, who also eyed the project as a producing opportunity. Now this was in the late 1990s, when 20th Century Fox had the rights to the character and was trying to get a movie off the ground, so Tom Cruise’s version of Iron Man not only would’ve been very different, it wouldn’t have been part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

But still, the idea of Tom Cruise as Iron Man is an intriguing one, so Collider Video produced a deepfake video imagining what Cruise would have looked like in the role. The video not only puts Cruise into 2008’s Iron Man, but also into various films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe—including Avengers: Endgame. Again, Cruise’s potential involvement in an Iron Man movie predated the existence of the MCU by about a decade and he’s clearly been busy building out his own Mission: Impossible franchise in the meantime, but it’s fun to see what might have been had the circumstances been a little different.

To take the deepfake one step further, Cruise impressionist Evan Ferrante (aka “Not Tom Cruise”) provides the voicework for the video.

Check out the Tom Cruise deepfake video below:

 

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