Jon Hamm Turned Down Superhero Movies ... But Which Ones?

Jon Hamm’s dapper Don Draper from Mad Men propelled the actor to stardom — but it turns out he could have gone even further.

Allegedly, Hamm turned the opportunity to play a major superhero down, but it’s still fun to speculate about what could have been.

Hamm reportedly turned down “more than one” superhero film over the years. Our first guess is pretty obvious: Superman in Man of Steel, which eventually went to Henry Cavill. It might have changed the story in order to make up for the age difference between the two, but if Ben Affleck’s Batman is anything to go off of, DC has no problem aging up its heroes for the right actor. Hamm certainly has the “classically handsome” vibe going for him, which opens up several opportunities within the superhero world.

In an interview with Radio Times, Hamm said he’s happy he turned the roles down.

“The deals that they make you do are so draconian,” he told Radio Times. “For me to sign on now to do a superhero movie would mean I would be working until I am fifty as that particular superhero. … It’s a lot of work at one thing which is not necessarily the reason I got into the business.”

Hamm wanted a more diverse set of opportunities than a superhero film contract would have allowed him. He also had to stay focused on his role on the 7-season trip and a half of Mad Men — which paid off in the end, after he won an Emmy in 2015.

But despite that conflict, we still wonder what roles he actually turned down. Between the start of Mad Men in 2007 — which would have put Hamm on casting directors’ radars — and now, there have been over 40 “superhero” films within the DC and Marvel kingdoms alone.

Because of Hamm’s concern about the length of contracts, we can assume that the roles were in either a DC or Marvel film, due to both bestowing infamously long, several-movie deals upon their actors. So, that leads us back to the obvious role of Clark Kent in Man of Steel, but who else?

It was rumored for a while that Hamm was a possible choice for playing Stephen Strange in the upcoming Doctor Strange, but obviously that didn’t pan out.

Hamm could have made a good Reed Richards if the Fantastic Four remake had focused on an older group. A role as the younger Magneto to compliment Sir Ian McKellen’s elder version is another option. Or let’s just go all-out and imagine that Marvel approached Hamm to play Steve Rogers in the Captain America franchise (before turning your nose up, keep in mind that everyone from Channing Tatum to Jensen Ackles was considered for the role, so it’s a real possibility).

Alas, Jon Hamm is still making cameos and working on smaller, far less blockbuster-esque films. And he seems very happy.