Does Terrence Howard Blame Robert Downey Jr. For His 'Iron Man' Axing?

We all know that Terrence Howard and Marvel came to blows when agreeing terms for the second Iron Man film, with Howard reportedly being dropped by the comic book and movie empire over wage disputes. It turns out that Howard still hasn't gotten over his dismissal, but has recently let it be known that, as far as he is concerned, Robert Downey Jr. had as much of an influence in his dismissal as the heads at Marvel and Disney did.

Howard thinks RDJ's wage demands are to blame for his dismissal

Whilst Don Cheadle has since given a fantastic portrayal of Col. James 'Rhodey' Rhodes in place of Howard, the Oscar-nominated actor is still annoyed that it isn't him starring in the films still, and he has developed a few of his own hypothesis as to why he is no longer involved in the films. It has been widely believed, with Howard himself discussing his dismissal similarly, that he was given the boot after refusing to take a pay cut for the second edition of the Iron Man series. With a payday almost equalling $5 million for the first film, he was the highest paid actor fin the film, but as he refused to comply with Marvel's wage demands, his part was recast. Speaking on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live, Howard has now come up with another excuse to explain his dismissal.

Howard was replaced in the series by Don Cheadle

He said, “This is gonna get me in a lot of trouble. It turns out that the person that I helped become Iron Man, when it was time to re-up for the second one took the money that was supposed to go to me and pushed me out. We did a three picture deal. You did the deal ahead of time. A certain amount for the first one. For the second a certain amount. For the third…they came to me for the second one and said, ‘We will pay you 1/8th of what we contractually had for you, because we think the second one will be successful with or without you.’ And I called my friend who I helped get the first job and he didn’t call me back for three months."

If what he is saying is true, then he has every right to be so pissed off still, but does this really give him any just reason to start bad mouthing RDJ? We don't know, and are unlikely to ever know, exactly what happened on set and if there were any ulterior motives behind Howard's dismissal, but some could say, based on this evidence alone, that Howard got ripped off by Marvel.

Do you think RDJ is to blame?