Over the years, the mentorship between Iron Man and Spider-Man has been a fixture in the comics lore and as we all know, it even crossed over to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, as much as Tony Stark has served as a father figure to Peter Parker in the franchise, the "genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist" came close to creating one of Spidey's fiercest foes as revealed in the earliest draft for Iron Man's screenplay.
Turns out, Marvel Studios came extremely close to introducing Doc Ock into the MCU or at least making a reference to the iconic Spider-Man villain. According to an interesting trivia unearthed by Moviefone, an early script draft for the 2008 blockbuster starring Robert Downey Jr. would have seen Tony invent mechanical tentacles which will be wielded by "a scientist in New York". Of course, it's already a no-brainer that the scientist in question could in fact be Otto Octavius.
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Ultimately, Marvel Studios didn't pull the trigger and removed any Doc Ock references to the film. With the film rights to Spidey-related characters being owned by Sony Pictures, it made absolute sense for Kevin Feige and his crew to drop any plans of introducing the character. And even if it was just meant to be a harmless easter egg, it would've cost a rift between the two production companies, and who knows, we may not have gotten our friendly neighborhood web-slinger in Earth-616 had Marvel chosen to push through with their initial plans.
Thankfully though, Marvel and Sony's shared agreement has allowed characters from the Spider-Man lore to make appearances in the MCU and it just goes to show how patience truly comes a long way, especially in crafting a franchise like the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
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