Both of Hollywood’s biggest superhero franchises are hedging their bets on the multiverse in a significant way, and trying to guess what the future holds for either the Marvel Cinematic Universe or the DCEU is now as close to impossible as it gets.
Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton are back as Batman, Jared Leto’s Joker will return in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, Jamie Foxx is reprising his role as The Amazing Spider-Man 2‘s Electro in Spider-Man 3, while Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield have been heavily linked with suiting up again. Of course, just a few months ago, you’d have been called crazy for suggesting that any of this was remotely possible.
There’ve also been rumors that Marvel are considering the idea of introducing alternate versions of several marquee heroes as the multiverse begins to take shape, with John Krasinski and Tom Cruise said to be in contention for Captain America and Iron Man, respectively. Now, a new fan poster from Art of Time Travel gathers together a whole roster of alternate Avengers for action, which you can check out below.
All of the actors seen in this poster have history with the characters they’re depicted as, but Edward Norton’s Hulk was the only one that actually happened. Emily Blunt was forced to turn down the role of Black Widow due to her commitments on forgotten Jack Black vehicle Gulliver’s Travels, while Alexander Skarsgard was one of just many actors to audition for the part of Thor.
John Krasinski and Jensen Ackles, meanwhile, were both on the final Captain America shortlist, and the latter also reportedly declined the opportunity to play Hawkeye because of scheduling conflicts with Supernatural. Tom Cruise is the only outlier, though, because talk of him suiting up and leading the Avengers as Tony Stark happened in the 1990s, well over a decade before the MCU even existed.