War Machine’s Don Cheadle Revealed He Only Had Two Hours to Decide If He Wanted to Join the MCU

Don Cheadle, the actor who has played James Rhodes/War Machine in the MCU since 2010’s Iron Man 2, revealed that he was at his kid’s birthday party when he was asked to join Marvel and sign a six-movie contract with very little details.

As reported by Variety, Cheadle was speaking to GQ magazine and told the story of how he took over the role of War Machine from Terrence Howard and secured his place in the MCU.

“I was at my kid’s laser tag birthday party,” Cheadle said. “They called me and said, ‘This is what’s happening and we’re giving you the offer. If you don’t say yes then we’re going to the next person. This is going to happen very fast. Why don’t you take an hour and decide if you want to do it.’ It was a six-movie deal! In an hour I have to decide?”

While he knew about Iron Man 2, Cheadle wasn’t given any more concrete details as to what movies he would be a part of.

“It’s going to be these Avengers and this is what it is, so you have to say yes or no,” Marvel said.

When Cheadle asked about his character arc throughout these movies, Marvel said, “We don’t know any of that but this is what it is so you’ve got an hour.”

Cheadle was able to negotiate the deadline to two hours as he was at his kid’s birthday party.

“So we played laser tag for two hours and I was talking to my wife and we thought about it and talked to my agent and tried to get as much information as we could,” Cheadle said.

It was obviously a good decision for Cheadle as he has been a supporting actor in the MCU for 12 years and his gearing up to lead the upcoming Armor Wars movie.

“In every successive film, he’s coming more and more out of Tony’s shadow and becoming his own person,” Cheadle said. “But we still haven’t explored who he is and really dug into that yet. That’s what the movie is for.”

Armor Wars was originally going to be a Disney+ series but will now be a feature film that is said to be entering production in 2023.

For more, check out our look at what fans can expect from Marvel in 2023 and a list of all the upcoming MCU movies and shows.

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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.