Robert Downey Jr. Was Almost McG's Lex Luthor

About a decade ago, director McG was attached to a "Superman" reboot that would have shook the whole franchise up. With a screenplay by a pre-"Lost" J.J. Abrams, Mr. G's film would've made bold changes to the Superman mythos, like seeing Big Blue killed in his first major exposure to humanity and making him the center of a Kryptonian prophecy about saving the world.

It never came to be, but in an interview with The Playlist, McG talked briefly about the changes he was prepared to make. As it turns out, we probably would've never seen a proper "Iron Man" movie had his "Superman" come to fruition.

"We had Robert Downey Jr. locked up to be Lex Luthor," he said, "which I think would have been extraordinary."

Indeed, it would've been an inspired, exciting take on the famously manic mad scientist, though the Abrams script had Luthor written as a government agent. But it's hard to imagine that Downey Jr. would've been cast as Marvel's Tony Stark a few years later, given the iciness between such cross-company pollination. (James Marsden logged double-time in "X-Men" and "Superman Returns," but to be fair his "Superman" character was written for the film, and also boring.)

Funny enough, McG's choice for Superman himself wasn't too much different from how things eventually turned out. "Ironically, we liked Henry Cavill a lot, but we hadn't cast him yet," he said. Cavill is playing Superman in the upcoming "Man of Steel," of course, but it's interesting to think about how he would've looked as a younger Kryptonian, rather than the slightly darker, more mature superhero we've been promised in the Zack Snyder relaunch.

As for why it didn't pan out, McG accepts the blame, though he didn't offer a ton of details. "J.J. wrote the script, and we got that to a really good place in the end," he said. "But I'm to blame for [the film not happening]." Robert Downey Jr. was free to do "Iron Man," Cavill would eventually become Superman a decade later, and McG could focus on projects like "Terminator: Salvation." Everyone won in the end, sort of.

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