- VisionQuest's creator briefly floated the idea of a Tony Stark cameo in the Marvel TV show
- The series has numerous ties to Robert Downey Jr's iconic MCU character
- Terry Matalas knew it was a non-starter, so it never moved forward
VisionQuest's showrunner has admitted he'd have liked to have included a Tony Stark cameo — but was well aware that he was "not going to get" Robert Downey Jr to appear in the Marvel TV show.
Chatting to me at the Disney+ series' UK junket, Terry Matalas name-dropped Stark as a character he would have included if time and money were no object. But, as Matalas also noted, though it would've been "wonderful" to surprise audiences with a shock appearance from Downey Jr, the chances of him actually agreeing to pop up in the Wanda/Vision TV trilogy capper were effectively zero.
Asked whether Marvel placed any limitations on the story he wanted to tell and/or established characters he wanted to utilize, Matalas replied: "No. I mean, it usually comes down to budget. If we had more time and money, you could include anything, maybe even a flashback to Tony Stark dealing with the source code [that he uses to make his artificial intelligence (AI) programs]."
It's not an outlandish suggestion for Matalas to make. After all, Stark helped to create Vision and Ultron, aka the deuteragonists of VisionQuest, way back in 2014's Avengers: Age of Ultron. Furthermore, he made myriad AIs to help him with various tasks in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) before — spoiler — his heroic sacrifice in Avengers: Endgame.
With Vision, Ultron, and the other artificial beings built by Stark appearing in VisionQuest, it's not unreasonable to assume that a Downey Jr cameo was bandied about in the writers room. Add in the story that the Marvel Phase 6 project tells (don't worry, I won't spoil anything here), and a Stark appearance makes even more sense from a narrative standpoint.
Nonetheless, Matalas knew it would be nigh-on impossible to involve Downey Jr in any capacity, so that idea was consigned to the scrap heap as quickly as it took form.
Responding to my follow-up about whether he broached the subject of a Downey Jr cameo with Marvel executives, Matalas said: "We're not going to get Downey Jr into a Marvel show.
"It would've been wonderful," he added. "But, we're just a TV series, so you can't really have all of the... I mean, there are limitations, right? You have grand ideas but, throughout the development process, you have to say 'well, we can't do that, so how do we distill down that idea into something that could work?'. Hopefully, we got there, but we'll see [how viewers react to our story]."
For more ahead of its launch, read my VisionQuest review to see what I made of all eight episodes (again, no major spoilers housed within!). Then, find out when each chapter will air by checking out my VisionQuest release schedule guide.