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Thursday, October 8
First, a quick recap of Iron Man villains: Jeff Bridges anchored Iron Man's genesis story, with Faran Tahir supporting as the terrorist leader Raza (who may return as Mandarin in Iron Man 3), and Iron Man 2 will see Mickey Rourke battle as Whiplash with Sam Rockwell behind the scenes as Justin Hammer. So with that in mind, could fans see Couples Retreat actor Faizon Love as a villain in Iron Man 3? Love told Moviehole that he almost appeared in the first Iron Man.
They already tried to put me in Iron Man but I couldn't. I think I would make it suck. I don't know that genre. These guys do. I didn't know it was a real comic book. [Jon Favreau] thinks I'd make a good villain. Maybe I should just get it out of my way and just do it?
Love should take Favreau's advice. Someone has to play Crusher. Then again, Love took Favreau's offer to appear in Couples Retreat, which isn't looking so good.
Posted 10/8/2009 by Ryan
Related: Faizon Love | Jon Favreau | Iron Man | Iron Man 2 | Iron Man 3 | Couples Retreat
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Monday, August 31
Director Matthew Vaughn is a huge comic book fan, as his upcoming Kick-Ass adaptation hopes to prove. However, Vaughn has left more superhero movies than he's made, having abandoned both Thor and X-Men: The Last Stand.
But that doesn't mean that Vaughn isn't ready for more. Vaughn told MTV about two projects he's hoping to direct:
I grew up watching superhero films, so I want to make superhero films. I was desperate to do Iron Man about 8 years ago, and everyone was like, "Iron Man, no one will go watch that." Cut to now, and it's a huge hit. [I'd] love to do The Avengers. And Superman ... I think it would be great to reinvent Superman.
Of course, Jon Favreau directed Iron Man, and he's also been discussed as the potential director for The Avengers. In fact, Favreau feels that The Avengers might keep the Iron Man series from falling into predictability:
...The Avengers might be the thing that helps rescue us from the inevitable sequel slump that you get into, because you're throwing everything on its ear. It might be a failed experiment or it might be something wonderful, but it allows you to add complexity in an organic way where you're culminating with something bigger, as opposed to trying to play out and not repeat the same story over and over again.
Vaughn might have a better chance at the next Superman, though James McTeigue has been strongly rumored to be directing the project.
Posted 8/31/2009 by Ryan
Related: Jon Favreau | X-Men: The Last Stand | Superman Returns | Iron Man | Superman: The Man of Steel | Thor | Iron Man 2 | The Avengers | Matthew Vaughn | Kick-Ass
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Friday, August 21
The big surprise at San Diego Comic-Con was the reveal that Don Cheadle as Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes would appear as War Machine in Iron Man 2, but what Cheadle didn't realize is how much CGI would go into his performance, as he revealed to ComicBookResources:
I didn't expect the "Rhodey CGI" character to work more days than me. I didn't think my stuntman would work as many days as I did. But you know, really it's a combination of your work. You're in this motion capture suit, then stuntmen do some stuff, you get to do some stuff, then they don't need any of you and they draw it themselves. In a movie like this, you do your performance and then you hand it off. Then teams of people flesh it out and create what we saw, so you have to trust a lot. But wearing the suit, it's heavy this is true.
Despite his surprise, Cheadle is thrilled to be playing a superhero:
You fantasize about it as a kid and think it would be a lot of fun. Then you're 40 and you're like, "Nah." But I saw the first Iron Man and I just really enjoyed it. I thought they did a great job. They were able to really combine the CGI and the pyrotechnics with some real character stuff going on, so I thought it was a very interesting mix. When I got the call I had to ponder it for a while but ultimately I thought, "Yeah, this is a good thing to do."
With that much CGI being poured into Cheadle's role, it must mean that War Machine plays a very significant part in the movie. Will it be enough for War Machine to get his own movie?
We haven't discussed that. I have no idea. Maybe. Potentially. But, he's an integral part of the Iron Man 2 story, for sure. His relationship with Robert [Downey Jr.] is a big part of the story, what happens with Tony Stark and me.
Next Showing: Iron Man 2 opens May 7, 2010
Posted 8/21/2009 by Ryan
Related: Don Cheadle | Robert Downey Jr. | Iron Man | Iron Man 2
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Monday, August 17
It's a common problem for comic book-movie sequels: too many villains. In Iron Man, director Jon Favreau kept things simple by having Robert Downey Jr. square off with only one major villain, Jeff Bridges. For Iron Man 2, Downey Jr. will face off against Mickey Rourke as Whiplash, Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, and possibly fighting with best friend Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes (Don Cheadle) as War Machine, whose appearance was confirmed at the San Diego Comic-Con.
Cheadle told MTV that his time in the War Machine armor was "significant" and that there will be tension between himself and Downey Jr.:
We kept asking ourselves: How does that play out with Tony Stark being an independent contractor doing what he wants to do, and Rhodes actually being in the military. There's a real chain of command he has to follow. What's the conflict that creates?
Will featuring so many potential adversaries in Iron Man 2 weigh down the movie? Favreau seems aware of the potential villain overload and doesn't see it as a problem:
We had to walk a fine line. I think you're good for number two. Two seems to be the charm because you got your origin story out of the way. You can add some complexity to it and you have room, because you don't have to tell the origin story, to introduce the characters. When you get to number three, you can get hidebound. You're like a beached whale sometimes because you have so much, you collapse under the weight of the complexity that you've created.
Favreau has suggested that a potential Iron Man 3 will likely focus on arch-nemesis Mandarin. Thus far, no other villains have been named. That ought to keep the "complexity" down.
Next Showing: Iron Man 2 opens May 7, 2010
Posted 8/17/2009 by Ryan
Related: Don Cheadle | Don Cheadle | Jeff Bridges | Jon Favreau | Scarlett Johansson | Robert Downey Jr. | Iron Man | Iron Man 2 | Iron Man 3 | Mickey Rourke
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Saturday, August 1
Writer, actor, director Jon Favreau understands the importance of winning over the core comic book fan base, which is why he debuted footage of both Iron Man films at the San Diego Comic-Con. About the über-zealous fans, Favreau said, "The geeks have inherited the Earth, and that's good news for us."
In a roundtable interview after the Iron Man 2 footage was shown, Favreau explained why Whiplash (played by Mickey Rourke) and War Machine (Don Cheadle) were featured instead of Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), the original choice for the teaser.
The jury was out on Scarlett for a while ... and when those pictures came out online everybody was like, "Wow." So, I was like, "Okay, that's not the big one," you know? And, with Whiplash, we kind of wanted to show a little bit more of what we're doing with the technology of that character and explain how it fits into the story.
Favreau explained that the character of Whiplash is very much a dark version of Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.).
We want to unify the technology of what's going on with Iron Man, what's going on with Whiplash, and ... when ... (Rourke's character is) building Whiplash, it's mirroring in a lot of ways the assembly of the (Iron Man) armor, except under different circumstances. So, it's almost like the shadow version of Tony Stark coming from a different place going through a similar journey as him.
The part of the Iron Man 2 teaser that seemed to most electrify the audience in Hall H was the footage of War Machine, a souped-up, Iron Man-on-steroids hero. Favreau explained:
The thing that's fun about War Machine is it's over-the-top ... Iron Man is the sleek, elegant version where everything is contained under the airframe and War Machine is, you know, the over-the-top, everything hangin' out and ... it creates a little bit of a rivalry between the two of them in that respect. So, we use guns ... there's lots of gun porn in this movie, lets put it that way. And it's not just with that character, there's a lot — we're living in that world and it's the extreme version of the military industrial complex. That's the pool that we spawn from.
Iron Man 2 also stars Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer, Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. There are also rumors that either Bruce Banner or the Hulk will make a cameo appearance in the film, but Edward Norton has refused to comment.
Next Showing: Iron Man 2 opens May 7, 2010
Posted 8/1/2009 by BrentJS
Related: Don Cheadle | Jon Favreau | Scarlett Johansson | Robert Downey Jr. | Iron Man | Iron Man 2 | Mickey Rourke
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Friday, July 31
Actor Robert Downey Jr. burst into the foreign press room after the Iron Man 2 panel at the San Diego Comic-Con with the same cocky confidence that fuels Tony Stark, the character that has propelled Downey Jr. back into the spotlight after too long of an absence.
Despite the ease with which Downey Jr. seemed to handle the adulation of the throngs of people cheering for him in Hall H just minutes before, he admitted that he wasn't entirely comfortable with it:
... when I was a teenager, what I wanted was the experience of walking into a Hall H and having a reaction like that, but I didn't actually want to have to do what it took to maybe earn anywhere near the kind of, you know, pseudo-respect that gets you in that position. So, I don't really quite know what to make of it. I know that it feels good, but I also know that one should exert caution over things that feel good just for a second and then are done.
The first Iron Man had a $100-million opening weekend and went on to gross $585 million worldwide, fueled as much by the mesmerizing performance of Downey Jr. as Stark as by the superheroic CGI effects of the Iron Man armor. Downey Jr. said that the development of the character continues in Iron Man 2 and that there's nothing gratuitous about the action sequences:
Every piece of action that happens in Iron Man 2 is a direct result of a part of a character arc, including probably the biggest sequence in the first hour of the movie ... everything is a result of essentially dysfunction or mistakes made, and those mistakes, when you're Iron Man, and when you're surrounded by the kind of people he is, the ramifications are ginormous.
Though he didn't go into specifics about what sort dysfunction Tony might have, Downey Jr. did say that Stark is "struggling with some sort of contamination of his own system." To comic book fans, this statement seems to inform the inclusion of elements of the famous "Demon in a Bottle" comic book storyline, in which Tony struggles with alcohol addiction. Downey Jr. said that part of Tony's character arc includes the realization that it's okay to ask for help when you're in trouble:
I think that Tony thinks he can handle everything if he just gets enough space and he can figure everything out if he just puts his mind to it. And, that's not the way it works. And, I think that's the big lesson in this film, is that he has to utilize not only all of his own resources but the resources of those close to him and then resources from somewhere he never, ever, ever could've imagined.
Next Showing: Iron Man 2 opens May 7, 2010
Posted 7/31/2009 by BrentJS
Related: Robert Downey Jr. | Iron Man | Iron Man 2
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Wednesday, July 29
Backstage after Comic-Con's Iron Man 2 panel, actress Scarlett Johansson shed some light on the character she portrays in the movie, Natasha Romanoff, AKA the Black Widow:
There are sort of two sides to my character, she's a bit of a shape-shifter, I suppose. There's a side of the character that's kind of demur and sort of covert, and, um, kind of … I wouldn't say that she's submissive, but she's kind of blending into sort of Stark Industries of some kind. And, then the other part of the character, which is a really aggressive and badass character that is sure of herself and is going to kick the shit out of you if you get in her way. That's about as much as I can tell you.
When asked if she was nervous about donning the skin-tight black leather suit that the Black Widow is famous for, Johansson admitted she was nervous at first:
I had a bit of a freak-out moment. Well, it was more seeing ... 'cause the costume took a while to build it, obviously, but I saw some of the sketches and I knew what to expect because I had obviously seen the kind of later incarnation of the character. I knew that it was going to be some kind of cat suit of some kind. So, I had a freak-out moment, but that only lasted about, you know, half-a-day and I was like, "Suck it up, you gotta just do it," so I never turned back after that. I just went, like, full force.
Johansson seemed perfectly comfortable onstage for the panel, unlike her co-star Sam Rockwell, who admitted to being rattled by the 6,000-plus in attendance at Hall H. She also said that she's used to the idea of being scrutinized by millions of people and her only real fear was that the Black Widow costume would be restrictive:
I have to say that the idea of so many millions of people watching what I'm going to do, I'm used to that kind of feeling. But, as far as the action sequences go, and how the costume relates to that — one thing that's obviously important to my character is that the costume moves, the character is, you know, an expert of hand-to-hand combat, she's a mixed martial artist, she comes from a dance background, there's some gymnastics thrown in — it's kind of like everything all thrown into one big, sort of, fighting machine. So, a big part of me was like, "Can I move in this, can I run in it?"
Johansson said that after the mental hurdle of wearing the suit was behind her and the suit had been designed and built, it all came down to hard work. She said, "You just have to put in the hours, you know?"
Posted 7/29/2009 by BrentJS
Related: Scarlett Johansson | Sam Rockwell | Iron Man | Iron Man 2
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Monday, July 27
Terrence Howard's prophetic utterance of "next time" from Iron Man is the key to Jon Favreau and company's biggest surprise revealed at San Diego Comic-Con. During an Iron Man 2 panel discussion, Favreau told the crowd that War Machine will indeed appear in the movie:
We wanted to use Comic-Con as our venue to have the first images of War Machine come out. There's been talk of whether it was [in the film] or not, and we've been holding back. We haven't talked officially about it. We wanted to show the fans some of that.
For those unfamiliar with the character from the comic books, Favreau explained:
War Machine is another character that's based on the Iron Man technology. James Rhodes, or 'Rhodey,' the character in this film played by Don Cheadle [replacing Howard], he has his own suit. It looks different, different coloring, different weapons on it. War Machine and Iron Man, typically in the books, are at odds. And so, it's Iron Man facing up against someone of equal power and stature using the same technology.
Favreau then showed a 5-minute clip of the movie that featured Cheadle being offered the armor by Tony Stark rival Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) and ended in an action shot of War Machine firing weapons from his armor.
With Mickey Rourke looking to complicate things as nemesis Whiplash and Scarlett Johansson possibly working to bring down Tony Stark as well, the addition of War Machine is sure to give Robert Downey Jr. a lot to deal with in the sequel. After seeing the footage of War Machine, Downey Jr. was not pleased.
"I can't believe your rig is better than my rig," Downey Jr. said to Cheadle.
"It was a contractual thing," Cheadle responded.
Next Showing: Iron Man 2 opens May 7, 2010
Posted 7/27/2009 by Ryan
Related: Don Cheadle | Jon Favreau | Scarlett Johansson | Terrence Howard | Sam Rockwell | Robert Downey Jr. | Iron Man | Iron Man 2 | Mickey Rourke
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The San Diego Comic-Con was a boon for upcoming Marvel movie information, not only for next year's Iron Man 2 but for The Avengers as well. Jon Favreau has been mentioned as a possible director for the superhero mash-up, but Favreau explained that nothing has been determined yet:
My involvement has yet to be determined on that project. Remember, you have to take into account what Thor is and you don't know that until the film's locked. You're not going to know about Thor for two years, what that really means. And Captain America, they haven't even started prepping yet. So there's a lot of discovery that has to take place before you can understand what Avengers really is.
Also in the Avengers mix would be Iron Man, and while Favreau sounds on the fence about the Avengers, he would have a hard time not directing an Iron Man-related movie:
It's strange when you have to switch those hats, because I'm not used to that, and just going from directing and creating this world to just being Happy Hogan in The Avengers would be — I'm not going to lie — it would be strange. I'll be involved as an executive producer, but it's a lot different being a consultant on something [compared to] being the guy calling the shots.
As for future Iron Man movies, Favreau feels that "if there was a third episode it should be The Avengers," though he also confirmed that Iron Man 3 is already in Marvel's plans:
Here's how I know. When they make the option deals, they include Iron Man 3. So I know they're planning on three. Whether that would be before or after Avengers, they've announced that Avengers is next but they pushed back The Avengers once which I thought was encouraging.
With Favreau busy, Marvel's President of Production Kevin Feige was telling Collider the Avengers line-up:
It's going to be Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Nick Fury. I think it's safe to assume that there will be some members of the Hulk universe in the film as well. In terms of the additional, I think Black Widow for sure. SHIELD's organization form sure. And, again, what's exciting to me about the Avengers movie are seeing those four characters together and interact with each other. Anywhere from the first issue of the Avengers to [Marvel's comic series] Civil War, the dynamic between Steve Rogers [Captain America] and Tony Stark [Iron Man] is awesome and fascinating. It brings out sides of the others that won't be brought out in their own franchises. Throwing Thor into the mix is a whole other thing and I think that will be cool. So to pile in another ten or fifteen...or frankly even four...I think will be too many.
The Avengers opens May 4, 2012, with Iron Man 2 (May 7, 2010), Thor (May 20, 2011) and First Avenger: Captain America (July 22, 2011) preceding it.
Posted 7/27/2009 by Ryan
Related: Jon Favreau | Kevin Feige | Iron Man | Iron Man | Thor | Iron Man 2 | First Avenger: Captain America | The Avengers | The Avengers | Iron Man 3 | Jon Favreau | Kevin Feige | Iron Man | Iron Man | Thor | Iron Man 2 | First Avenger: Captain America | The Avengers | The Avengers | Iron Man 3
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The San Diego Comic-Con was a boon for upcoming Marvel movie information, not only for next year's Iron Man 2 but for The Avengers as well. Jon Favreau has been mentioned as a possible director for the superhero mash-up, but Favreau explained that nothing has been determined yet:
My involvement has yet to be determined on that project. Remember, you have to take into account what Thor is and you don't know that until the film's locked. You're not going to know about Thor for two years, what that really means. And Captain America, they haven't even started prepping yet. So there's a lot of discovery that has to take place before you can understand what Avengers really is.
Also in the Avengers mix would be Iron Man, and while Favreau sounds on the fence about the Avengers, he would have a hard time not directing an Iron Man-related movie:
It's strange when you have to switch those hats, because I'm not used to that, and just going from directing and creating this world to just being Happy Hogan in The Avengers would be — I'm not going to lie — it would be strange. I'll be involved as an executive producer, but it's a lot different being a consultant on something [compared to] being the guy calling the shots.
As for future Iron Man movies, Favreau feels that "if there was a third episode it should be The Avengers," though he also confirmed that Iron Man 3 is already in Marvel's plans:
Here's how I know. When they make the option deals, they include Iron Man 3. So I know they're planning on three. Whether that would be before or after Avengers, they've announced that Avengers is next but they pushed back The Avengers once which I thought was encouraging.
With Favreau busy, Marvel's President of Production Kevin Feige was telling Collider the Avengers line-up:
It's going to be Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Nick Fury. I think it's safe to assume that there will be some members of the Hulk universe in the film as well. In terms of the additional, I think Black Widow for sure. SHIELD's organization form sure. And, again, what's exciting to me about the Avengers movie are seeing those four characters together and interact with each other. Anywhere from the first issue of the Avengers to [Marvel's comic series] Civil War, the dynamic between Steve Rogers [Captain America] and Tony Stark [Iron Man] is awesome and fascinating. It brings out sides of the others that won't be brought out in their own franchises. Throwing Thor into the mix is a whole other thing and I think that will be cool. So to pile in another ten or fifteen...or frankly even four...I think will be too many.
The Avengers opens May 4, 2012, with Iron Man 2 (May 7, 2010), Thor (May 20, 2011) and First Avenger: Captain America (July 22, 2011) preceding it.
Posted 7/27/2009 by Ryan
Related: Jon Favreau | Kevin Feige | Iron Man | Iron Man | Thor | Iron Man 2 | First Avenger: Captain America | The Avengers | The Avengers | Iron Man 3 | Jon Favreau | Kevin Feige | Iron Man | Iron Man | Thor | Iron Man 2 | First Avenger: Captain America | The Avengers | The Avengers | Iron Man 3