10 Most Controversial Marvel Casting Decisions Of All Time

The Marvel Cinematic Universe might include one of the largest ensemble casts of all time. While most of the heroes have their own solo projects to shine in, when they come together in movies like "Avengers: Infinity War," it's a sight to behold. It's action-paced, engaging, fun to watch, and leaves audiences rooting for new team-ups and battles. The passion for the heroes, and their ability to defeat Thanos and other villains, is what makes the MCU the saga it is today.

While fans have come to love the actors playing their favorite superheroes, not every casting announcement went over smoothly. Sometimes, viewers weren't convinced someone would "look" like the character enough, whether that meant something as basic as hair color or their physique. Other times, audiences were worried about important aspects of a character being erased because of who was taking on the role. No matter the reason, there have been plenty of controversial casting decisions within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and some received more backlash than others.

Steve Rogers wouldn't be the character he is without Chris Evans playing him in the MCU. Evans captures the spirit and strength of Captain America well, and he now has a huge fan following, enough so that they are trying to use his return as nostalgia bait for the next big "Avengers" movie. However, when Evans was first announced as America's First Avenger, audiences weren't immediately on board.

Initially, there was chatter that the actor didn't "look" the part. This is feedback that often comes up when an actor takes on a superhero role, but Evans proved the naysayers wrong by putting on more muscle for the role. It also didn't help that Evans had already played a Marvel character, Johnny Storm, in 2005's "Fantastic Four" and the 2007 sequel, so many saw it as lazy casting and like Marvel wasn't trying to bring in new actors.

Though Evans's Captain America became an essential part of the Avengers and the MCU, he had what should've been his perfect ending in "Avengers: Endgame," passing the Captain America torch to Anthony Mackie's Sam Wilson after living a life with Peggy Carter with the help of Bruce Banner's time travel machine. However, "Avengers: Doomsday" teasers feature Chris Evans back as Steve Rogers, leaving fans divided on his return.

Television audiences knew Chris Pratt as Andy Dwyer on "Parks and Recreation," the lovable guy whose heart was definitely bigger than his head. The actor handles comedy well, but it still came as a surprise to Marvel fans when he was cast as Peter Quill/Star-Lord for James Gunn's "Guardians of the Galaxy."

Like Chris Evans, people were concerned because Pratt didn't initially have the expected body type of someone portraying a superhero, though, just as others in his position did, he put on muscle for the part. It also didn't help that a portion of the audience thought "Guardians of the Galaxy" would be the first real miss for the MCU at that point, with Gizmodo calling the "weird scifi" of the IP, mostly referencing the character Rocket Raccoon, a possible hindrance to people liking the movie.

The actor himself was on the fence about taking the job, and did feel like his body at the time would impact his chances. "When 'Guardians of the Galaxy' was pitched to me, I said, 'I don't think so.' I just didn't picture myself getting the role," Pratt said in an interview with Esquire in 2014. "I didn't want to go and embarrass myself like I did when I auditioned for G.I. Joe a couple of years previously. I went in there, and halfway through I saw the director's eyes just glaze over. It made sense — I was a little heavy and out of shape."

Elizabeth Olsen plays Wanda Maximoff in the MCU, portraying the role through various arcs since 2015's "Avengers: Age of Ultron." Audiences have seen her become the Scarlet Witch, develop her powers so she's the only one strong enough to destroy an Infinity Stone, and create an entirely separate timeline in Westview, New Jersey as a way of coping with her grief after Vision's death. 

However, the character is Jewish and Roma in the source material, so Olsen's casting came under fire over concerns of whitewashing the role. This is one of those controversies rooted in Marvel seemingly making changes to important aspects of a character, rather than being rooted in Olsen's physique or ability. The actor is notably not Jewish or Roma, and some fans were disappointed that those parts of Wanda were being erased on-screen, especially as it wouldn't be the last time Marvel ignored what fans saw as important parts of a character in casting.

At the time, there weren't any women of color in the MCU in major roles, so many saw Wanda's casting as a way to remedy that. While there are now characters like Shuri and Kamala Khan, fans of Scarlet Witch saw the potential for her on-screen counterpart to be the first, and they made their thoughts known when that wasn't the case.

Idris Elba joined the MCU as Heimdall, a god and trusted warrior of Odin, in 2011's "Thor." While it should've been great news that one of the most famous actors in the world was joining the MCU, people immediately criticized the casting because Heimdall is a Norse god, and some fans of the comics felt that Norse gods could only be played by white actors. 

The character is depicted as white in the comics, and a vocal part of the fan base wanted Marvel to honor that, comparing the change to casting a white actor as Black Panther. However, being white is not an integral part of the god's story the way it is for Black Panther. Elba was having none of it, citing the arguably more unbelievable parts of the franchise and times where white actors played people of color on-screen. "We have a man [Thor] who has a flying hammer and wears horns on his head. And yet me being an actor of African descent playing a Norse god is unbelievable," the actor said during a speaking engagement at Rutgers University in 2011 (via The Hollywood Reporter). "I mean, Cleopatra was played by Elizabeth Taylor, and Gandhi was played by Ben Kingsley."

Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner is technically a recast. Edward Norton started in the role with 2008's "The Incredible Hulk," but with the success of "Iron Man" and the planned direction of the MCU, Hulk was set to become a bigger part of the story, and with rumored issues behind the scenes, Norton was relieved from his duties as the Hulk.

Fans didn't have a negative reaction to Ruffalo himself, but more so to Norton being fired. They liked Norton as the character, so they had strong opinions about Marvel having someone else step into the role. Audiences weren't upset that the replacement was Ruffalo; they were upset there was a replacement at all. Ruffalo seemed to understand where people were coming from. "I'm a friend of Ed's, and yeah, that wasn't a great way for all that to go down," the actor told Entertainment Weekly in 2010. "But the way I see it is that Ed has bequeathed this part to me. I look at it as my generation's Hamlet."

Reddit user Viseria believes that part of the backlash built over time was because of how Marvel has treated the Hulk. Ruffalo's version of the Hulk is arguably pretty different from Norton's, not only because of the choices made by the actors, but also because of how the character has been written in the MCU. "The backlash mainly came over time as Hulk was perceived as more nerfed and sulky rather than just angry, which led people to reminisce over the 'old Hulk', and from there Norton's Hulk," Viseria wrote. Part of this may be because the Hulk hasn't had a solo movie since Norton's installment; the closest thing to it was the "She-Hulk" TV series.

Pedro Pascal is one of the most beloved actors on the internet, affectionately dubbed "the internet's daddy." However, that wasn't enough to prevent backlash when Marvel announced he would play Mister Fantastic in 2025's "The Fantastic Four: First Steps." Sure, people were excited about the Fantastic Four making a comeback, but some found problems with him entering the MCU.

Most of those comments were rooted in his age or simply that his appearance didn't fit how the "Fantastic Four: First Steps" characters should really look. Pascal acknowledged that it's probably the most backlash he's received for any project he's been in. "I'm more aware of disgruntlement around my casting than anything I've ever done," the actor told Vanity Fair in 2025.

The discussion that Pascal was too old to play the character hit a bit closer to home, though he recognized that fans are just protective of the IP. "I think maybe my nerves were bigger than they usually are, and so I think I just was a little bit more sensitive to the love that people have for stories like this, because I know that they wouldn't exist if it weren't for the love that people have for these characters," the actor told AP News during a "Fantastic Four" fan event.

Marvel took a chance casting Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man. Not because Downey is a bad actor — he's amazing as Tony Stark and was the heart of the MCU during its prime. However, in the early 2000s, the actor was rebuilding his public image after spending time in drug rehabilitation facilities and prison.

It wasn't necessarily who Marvel was looking to invest in to headline the project that would effectively make or break the MCU, but director Jon Favreau fought for who he thought was the perfect actor for the role. Though he had mentioned Downey to the team several times, he was always met with a no. Eventually, he convinced them, highlighting that Downey and Tony Stark had similar characteristics and that Downey would be able to play the part well because of that connection.

In Marvel's eyes, he was a controversial pick because of his past, despite the audience reacting well to the news after an intentional leak by Favreau. Marvel eventually relented, and the rest is history. "That was a big gamble on whether or not he was really serious about it... and now history has definitely proven that he was dead serious about it and now he is the biggest star in the world," Favreau said in an interview with 100.3 Jack FM (via Cinema Blend).

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Robert Downey Jr. had a magnificent and well-hyped swan song from the MCU with Tony Stark's sacrifice in "Avengers: Endgame." The Spider-Man movie that followed, "Far From Home," even shows memorials to the philanthropic billionaire and Peter Parker (Tom Holland) continuing to work through his grief over the loss of his mentor and idol. It was a sad fate for Stark, but it felt well-deserved. 

All of this was undone when Marvel announced in 2024 that Downey would return to the MCU as Doctor Doom. This corresponded with the rebrand of the next phase of films, which were meant to follow Jonathan Majors' Kang the Conqueror, but were changed after Majors was fired as Kang due to being found guilty of reckless assault and harassment.

Fans were confused, as this Doctor Doom is an entirely new character, not a multiverse version of Tony Stark. Many felt Downey's return was a cash grab by Marvel to try to ensure audiences would be interested in the movie, since there had been mixed success for the ones released after "Endgame." There was also concern that the character was being reduced to nostalgia bait, which was disappointing to Doctor Doom fans, who consider him one of the best villains in the Marvel comics.

Tilda Swinton joined the MCU with "Doctor Strange," playing The Ancient One, Doctor Strange's mentor. Swinton's casting gender-swapped the role, which typically isn't a big deal. However, there was backlash because the Ancient One is traditionally depicted as a character of Asian descent, notably from Tibet, in the comics. Swinton's heritage is from the United Kingdom and not Asia, so this prompted accusations of whitewashing the Ancient One for the screen.

Marvel stood behind casting Swinton, releasing a statement in light of the controversy. "Marvel has a very strong record of diversity in its casting of films and regularly departs from stereotypes and source material to bring its MCU to life," Marvel said in a statement to Mashable. "The Ancient One is a title that is not exclusively held by any one character, but rather a moniker passed down through time, and in this particular film the embodiment is Celtic."

Some believed this was an attempt to stay on good terms with China so there wouldn't be any issues with the project's release there. This notion was seemingly confirmed by one of the movie's writers, C. Robert Cargill, on the Double Toasted podcast. Cargill describes the character as "a racist stereotype who comes from a region of the world that is in [a] very weird political place," and said that they weren't willing to risk China refusing to show "Doctor Strange," which would impact the international box office performance.

Though Zendaya's role as Michelle Jones-Watson in the "Spider-Man" movies is now iconic, this wasn't always the case. She was the most recent live-action actor for the character after Kirsten Dunst portrayed MJ in Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" trilogy, and when the rumors broke that Zendaya would play the role, a group of fans were upset that the character would not be portrayed by a white actor. MJ is depicted as white with red hair in the comics, and that's how she appeared in Raimi's films as well.

Despite the racially motivated backlash, Stan Lee himself made it clear where he stood on Zendaya's casting. "If she is as good an actress as I hear she is, I think it'll be absolutely wonderful," Lee told the Toronto Sun. "The color of their skin doesn't matter, their religion doesn't matter," he added.

The actor didn't let the negative sentiment affect her, sharing her thoughts on it to The Hollywood Reporter. "People are going to react over anything. But nothing [about who she is playing] is fact," Zendaya said. "I don't know what America you live in, but from what I see when I walk outside my streets of New York right now, I see lots of diversity and I see the real world and it's beautiful, and that's what should be reflected and that's what is reflected so you're just going to have to get over it."