Real or fake? Image shows Tom Cruise as [SPOILER] in Doctor Strange 2

Spider-Man: No Way Home is officially the biggest film of 2021. It’s also the biggest film of 2022. In fact, if things keep going the way they’re going it might become the biggest film of any year, and one of the reasons fans were frothing at the mouth for it is because it features the returns of not one but two actors who formerly played Spider-Man: Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield; their Peter Parkers were pulled into the MCU after Tom Holland’s Peter Parker botched a spell cast by Doctor Strange.

During the lead up to the movie, Garfield was out and about promoting his new film Tick, Tick… Boom! Just about every journalist on Earth asked him whether he was in No Way Home, and he lied his face off. I bring this up to underline that when it comes to forthcoming Marvel movies set in the multiverse, all bets are off. Anyone could show up, and you shouldn’t believe everything you see or read on the internet.

And as it happens, there’s another Marvel movie set in the multiverse coming around the bend, and another rumor about who might show up in it. Caution: potential SPOILERS ahead.

Does Tom Cruise play an Iron Man variant in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness?

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will follow the titular character as he tries to deal with the fallout from the spell he and Peter screwed up in No Way Home. That will probably involved visiting different realities and meeting different versions of characters we know, including different versions of himself.

And that’s where the rumor comes in. The internet has been chattering lately about Tom Cruise possibly making an appearance as a variant of Tony Stark, aka Iron Man. This is a fun idea by itself, but it also has ties to Marvel history: Tom Cruise was the studio’s original choice to play Iron Man way back when, although the role ended up going to Robert Downey Jr. instead.

There are even — allegedly — pictures of Cruise on set. You can see them here; we’re not going to embed them in the post itself lest Disney get litigious.

Are the pictures of Tom Cruise as Iron Man real?

Are these images the real thing? Well, they’re certainly grainy, and not clearly as clear as the leaked photos of Andrew Garfield from the set of No Way Home. Although it looks enough like Cruise to me. Or course, just because they have a picture of Cruise in front of a green screen doesn’t mean he’s in front of a green screen for Doctor Strange 2. And they all could have been faked in the first place.

Predictably, these pictures have divided people online, like so:

We won’t know for sure whether these images are real until the movie comes out, but it does seem like the kind of thing Marvel would do: after the success of No Way Home, I expect more famous cameos, not less.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness comes out in theaters on May 6.

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h/t Koimoi.com