One of the most impressive aspects of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as spearheaded by Marvel Studios and Kevin Feige, is the fact that they’ve largely stayed away from having to recast anyone in the almost-two dozen films, barring two major exceptions. The first is Edward Norton, who famously clashed over the script and post-production on “The Incredible Hulk,” but no one really remembers that film and Mark Ruffalo has overshadowed everything Norton did anyway. The other is Terrence Howard as James Rhodes, aka Rhodey, aka War Machine from “Iron Man.” And even a decade later, Howard still is a bit upset over what transpired.
For those that don’t remember, Howard starred in the role in the first “Iron Man” film. However, after contract negotiations fizzled, with the actor demanding too much money and publicly calling out Robert Downey, Jr., Howard was replaced by Don Cheadle in “Iron Man 2.” And we know how that turned out, with Cheadle then appearing in “Iron Man 3,” “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Captain America: Civil War,” and “Avengers: Infinity War.” Needless to say, Howard missed out on a huge opportunity.
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So, when Howard appeared on “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen,” a caller asked the actor if he’d ever come back to the role of War Machine. This, of course, presumes that Marvel Studios would be willing to fire Cheadle and hire Howard back, which is highly unlikely for a litany of reasons, but I digress.
Howard answered:
“You know what’s so funny? Even though I love Don Cheadle so much and I love what he’s done, I still hear a lot of fans asking, ‘Am I going to come back and be War Machine? Am I going to come back and be War Machine?’ I think they could have a huge franchise off of it, but fuck ‘em.”
Well, then.
We can safely say that the bridge between Marvel Studios and Terrence Howard has officially burned at this point. However, even though it’s easy to see what the actor says as sour grapes, there has to be a little sympathy for Howard.
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When he signed on for “Iron Man,” there was no MCU. There was no billion-dollar franchise. It was an unknown film from an unproven studio featuring a C-list superhero. It makes sense that after the monster success of the first film, Howard would demand a raise. Who knows? Maybe it was an exorbitant amount of money, but we also know that Marvel Studios was notoriously tight with their budgets back then. Perhaps if that happened today, Howard would have gotten what he wanted.
But yeah, it’s clear that Howard is reminded of Marvel Studios’ decision to recast every time he sees anything ‘Avengers’-related. And we all know there’s a lot of ‘Avengers’ material going around.
