{"id":649637,"date":"2026-08-21T20:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T20:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/649637\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T20:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T20:54:12","slug":"shaquille-oneal-marvel-turned-me-down-for-the-avengers-exclusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/649637\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaquille O’Neal: Marvel Turned Me Down for the ‘Avengers’ (EXCLUSIVE)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tShaquille O\u2019Neal will not be appearing in December\u2019s \u201cAvengers: Doomsday,\u201d<\/a> or any other \u201cAvengers\u201d film, for that matter.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an interview with Variety about his \u201cDunkman\u201d league<\/a>, the first professional dunking league where contestants from around the world compete for a grand prize of $500,000 \u2014 whose finals is airing the night of Aug. 25 on TNT \u2014 the NBA legend dished on his struggle to land roles in Hollywood where he doesn\u2019t play himself.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI would love to do more action roles but we were told by top Hollywood executives that I\u2019m too big, and what they mean by that is when I pop up on the screen everyone will go, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s Shaq!\u2019 So, if I\u2019m trying to play a doctor or anything, my character won\u2019t be believable,\u201d O\u2019Neal explained.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile O\u2019Neal, 54, portrayed a DC superhero in 1997\u2019s \u201cSteel,\u201d he says he\u2019s spent years trying to be a part of the Marvel<\/a> Cinematic Universe \u2014 namely, in an \u201cAvengers\u201d movie \u2014 but was rebuffed by the studio. He\u2019d first made his desire to be in an \u201cAvengers\u201d movie known during a 2018 interview<\/a> with EW.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI wanted to be in the \u2018Avengers\u2019 and they were like, \u2018Shaq, we fuckin\u2019 love you and we\u2019d love to put you in, but if your face pops up on screen people are going to go, \u2018Hey, that\u2019s Shaq!\u2019 He said it truthfully, and I was like, alright\u2026 I guess my face is too bigtime.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tO\u2019Neal did pop up in a fun cameo at the end of this year\u2019s \u201cScary Movie,\u201d<\/a> and will also appear in \u201cGrown Ups 3.\u201d But now that the Marvel dream has died, he\u2019s keen on sharing the silver screen with another hulking star, Dwayne \u201cThe Rock<\/a>\u201d Johnson. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI want to do a movie with The Rock so I can beat him up,\u201d he declares. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for whether he can take down The Rock, Shaq replies, \u201cOh, easy! Barbecue chicken.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tVariety\u2019s<\/strong> full feature on Shaquille O\u2019Neal and \u201cDunkman\u201d will run Tuesday, Aug. 25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shaquille O\u2019Neal will not be appearing in December\u2019s \u201cAvengers: Doomsday,\u201d or any other \u201cAvengers\u201d film, for that matter.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[263],"tags":[18,117,19,17,1889,327,70085,5098,73942],"class_list":["post-649637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-marvel","tag-movies","tag-shaquille-oneal","tag-the-avengers","tag-the-rock"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}