The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a behemoth force at this point, but it had somewhat humble beginnings. Those who have watched the Marvel movies in order know it all started with Jon Favreau’s 2008 blockbuster Iron Man. That movie started the shared universe, and also served as the comeback of Robert Downey Jr.. Producer Jeremy Latcham revealed that somewhere Marvel has a scene where Iron Man is doing laundry, with him saying “it’s wild.”
Before serialized storytelling and cinematic universes became commonplace, Favreau and Kevin Feige worked together on making the first Marvel movie. Iron Man and its post-credits scene changed the film world forever, a number of scenes were left on the cutting room floor. Latcham spoke with ScreenRant about some of those sequences, including one that was all about laundry. As he put it:
There are still three or four deleted scenes from [Iron Man] that I don’t think will ever be released because they were so bad. I remember Kevin saying to me in 2012, when I was like, ‘Should we put the Abu doing laundry deleted scenes out?’ And Kevin was like, ‘No. We can never put out Abu doing laundry. People will know we don’t know what we’re doing. It’ll be embarrassing if they see these scenes.’ But there was a whole runner in Iron Man where Tony Stark was doing laundry and I don’t think they’ve ever come out.
I think I’ve got FOMO. RDJ was so endlessly charismatic during his tenure playing Tony Stark that I’d be willing to watch him in just about any scene. That includes a scrapped sequence where he was stuck on laundry duty while being held captive by the Ten Rings. But does Iron Man use fabric softener?
Given the high stakes of Tony’s time in captivity, it makes sense that the laundry sequence was cut from the first Iron Man movie. And it seems like Kevin Feige didn’t even want it included in the deleted scenes, reportedly fearing that it would make them look bad. Later in that same interview, Jeremy Latcham offered more details about that mysterious scene, saying:
Someone should look into it, but I don’t think they’ve ever been seen. Tony is doing laundry for the captors, but he’s really breaking the washing machine and stealing parts from it to build the Mark 1 suit. It’s so absurd. It’s wild.
Wild sounds about right. Since the MCU is known for pivoting between comedy and drama, this scene doesn’t sound all that out of place to me. But then again I’ve never seen it… and maybe I never will. Although Latcham thinks that Kevin Feige could possibly change this.
Since the shared universe started with Iron Man, some Marvel fans are still hoping to see Robert Downey Jr. return as Tony Stark. But there’s been no indication that this is happening, with Tony getting an emotional death in Avengers: Endgame. But with the multiverse and time travel both in play, it feels like upcoming Marvel movies could go just about anywhere.
Guardians of the Galaxy 3 is in theaters now, and The Marvels will follow suit November 10th. In the meantime, be sure to check out the 2023 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience.
