From the Omaha Film Festival, Ain’t It Cool News, and a user there named Krullboy comes our first Iron Man 3 news.
Shane Black was in attendance at the fest, and naturally Iron Man 3 came up. He reports that he is writing it (hooray!), but revealed something very odd.
According to Black, Marvel and Paramount were displeased with the direction Iron Man 2 went in. Black plans (presumably with their approval) to take it away from “two men in iron suits fighting each other” and into the realm of plausibility. He plans to tackle it as a “a Tom Clancy style thriller” and have Tony Stark face off with real world baddies.
The sort of headsmacking bit about this news is that I was under the impression that Jon Favreau always intended to keep Tony as believable as possible. When I sat with him at the SDCC roundtable for Iron Man 2, he talked about the frustrations and complications that he foresaw in bringing real world Tony against the magic of Thor and the wider world of The Avengers. Because Iron Man 2 felt like one massive Marvel set up, I thought the “two men in suits” storyline really stemmed from a way to have to shoehorn Nick Fury and Black Widow in. That’s what I felt like watching it, anyway, and that was certainly the rumor once Favreau walked.
Making Iron Man 3 a more personal and smaller story (and not the face-off with Mandarin, as was originally the plan) would certainly be the best approach post-The Avengers. You need to scale the series back, and have Tony justify putting the suit on when he isn’t part of a massive superhero directive. This is the stuff of all the solo series. Why, they could even bring back Justin Hammer, who was arguably the highlight of Iron Man 2.
Black is definitely bringing a lot of spark and strength to this project, and kudos to Paramount and Marvel for taking a step back from the precipice, and(hopefully) concentrating on character and story again. I’m only sorry it didn’t happen more on Iron Man 2 so we could have had something beyond some loose excuses to work in SHIELD.
9 comments
Elisabeth Rappe, If Iron Man, is not going to fight another armored villain, I hope that he goes against, A.I.M. or HYDRA, or a more realistic criminal organization. I…Loved, Iron Man 2. The problem with IM2 is that, Nick Fury was a babysitter, instead of taking part in the action. I enjoyed seeing, Black Widow, but her part could have been dropped, in favor of some…FURYous action with Colonel Nick as well. I hope that the filmmakers do not cut down on the action in, Iron Man 3, in favor of too much realism. IM3 needs to see more of Tony Stark, in his…Armored Suit, instead of the business variety.
Gee, you’d think Marvel would know that Iron Man has been about “guys in iron suits fighting each other” for about 90 percent of its’ existence in the comics. I can forsee the pre-emptive complaints of “Where was Iron Man in Iron Man 3?” already. Couple that with folks complaining that it seems “smaller” than Avengers and I forsee much fanboy hatred of this film. Sounds like Marvel wants some excuses to throttle back the budget by cutting down on “man in suit” time. It’ll still make a pile of money, though.
I thought the same thing, but I admittedly haven’t read ALL of the Iron Man comics. I thought perhaps I skipped the ones where he *didn’t* fight other guys in iron suits. I should have double-checked that gut feeling on Wikipedia…
I’ve been waiting for Iron Man’s big showdown against his archenemy (The Mandarin) for a while now. He’s perhaps one of the VERY FEW Iron Man villians who ISN’T a dude in a suit. Of course, the second-biggest Iron Man villian, the Crimson Dynamo? Also MIA up until now. Of course, much like the Titanium Man, Blizzard, Iron Monger and ALMOST EVERY IRON MAN BAD GUY, he’s just a dude in another metal suit. Meanwhile, we get bizarre, not-based-on-the-comics renditions of terciary characters like Whiplash. And now, apparently, terrorists who Iron Man can ream with one hand behind his back.
As Jmacq1 already stated, man-in-suit-battles is 90% of what Iron Man is about.
There are a few exceptions, and please don’t mistake my snark for a belief that the movie will be bad. Though I confess there seems like there will be some dissonance going from Avengers into something that (perhaps unintentionally) sounds so comparatively mundane.
I also think it sounds like Marvel is trying to hang any shortcomings in Iron Man 2 on Favreau’s shoulders, which from what I can recall is complete BS given that Favreau seemed to make it pretty clear he wasn’t thrilled with the hand the studio dealt him on that sequel.
Well, to be fair, the Mandarin could actually be a good nemesis for a “political thriller” kind of story. He’d require a little bit of tweaking, but if you start with the most recent depictions of the character and work from there you could end up with something pretty plausible and easily able to work in that context. He’s definitely been used in political contexts before.
The only tough part is the “magic rings.”
Wasn’t the weakest part about IM2 the fact that all he did was fight men in suits? It became monotonous and of course too predictable. Also, a ridiculous end to the Whiplash fight, and you have shoddy writing at it’s finest. You can have a story with Iron Man leading up to a big fight, just not the same “he fought one in IM1, 100 in IM2, lets have him fight 1000 in the next one.” A better story is what I’m getting out of the article above.
I don’t buy Favreau’s side of this either, if that’s his viewpoint he’s misled himself. Iron man is no more believable than Thor and it’s Favreau’s lack of imagination that scuppers it for him. The most boring parts of Iron Man are when he’s just battling other guy’s in suits, it was the problem in both films, the end of the first was crap and most of the second was too. Iron Man needs to do more than just have fist/gun fights.
Chris Allen, Garageman, To me, the comic is an adaption of…Iron Man. Iron Man, outside of The Mandarin, A.I.M, HYDRA, Justin Hammer, usually fought…Men In Metalsuits! I want to see more of Tony Stark in his Iron Suit. There hasn’t been…Enough, Stark in his Iron Suit, in the films. My favorite parts of Iron Man and Iron Man 2, was when as…Shellhead, he is kicking ass. Iron Man and War Machine taking out several…HAMMERoids, was Awe-Inspiring! I…Loved seeing the suitcase armor, as that was…All Kinds Of Awesome!
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