Doctor Doom in the newest "Fantastic Four." 20th Century Fox Mark Ruffalo is now known to movie fans far and wide as The Incredible Hulk. However, it was very nearly the second comic book role he played, though he lost out in his bid to play the first. Previously, he auditioned to play Doctor Doom in The Fantastic Four. No, not in the 2005 version starring his Avengers co-star Chris Evans, but rather the infamous 1994 version which was directed by B-movie legend Roger Corman.

When Fox scored the right to The Fantastic Four, the deal with Marvel required the studio to make a movie within a particular time period, or else the rights would revert back to Marvel. By the mid-1990s the studio wasn't really ready to make a Fantastic Four movie yet, but they didn't want to lose the rights, so they hired Roger Corman to direct a Fantastic Four movie on a shoestring budget. The point wasn't to make money, or even release it, it was all a business decision in order to hold onto the film rights.

A documentary has been released which tells the story of the infamous film and Yahoo reports that it details that a young Mark Ruffalo actually auditioned to play the part of Doctor Doom. Ruffalo would have been in his mid-20s around the time The Fantastic Four was filming. Needless to say, he was not the name then that he is now. He only had a handful of credits to his name, and none of them were anything you're likely to have heard of.