Robert Downey Jr. is one of Hollywood's biggest stars, and having him front and center of so many Marvel films has been something of a blessing for the rather young film company. Downey Jr. brings a certain charm to the role of Tony Stark, and thinking now at the actor and his portrayal of the character on screen, it's hard to think of anyone else in the role. In a sense, Robert Downey Jr. has become synonymous with Tony Stark, and if you're a fan of the character, it's hard not to get excited about Iron Man 3 which is scheduled to hit theaters across North America on May 3rd.
With director Shane Black at the helm of this film, things are expected to be different for Tony. But how different? What changes can we expect to see? It's obvious that the tone of this next movie will be considerably darker than that of its predecessors. While the last two films dealt with Tony's rise as Iron Man (and subsequent internal struggle), this movie will deal with the character's fall from grace. Yet, what else will change? Entertainment Weekly's recent interview with Robert Downey Jr. gives a bit of insight into how much different this third Iron Man film will be from its two predecessors and the Avengers.
One of the first things Downey Jr. made a mention of in the interview was the "Boot/Glove sequence" that we had seen hinted on promotional posters previously. In this scene, Stark is equipped with only one Iron Man glove and boot, and must use only those two pieces to his advantage in order to fight the bad guys.
We’ve just been talking about one sequence – the top-secret name is the Boot/Glove Sequence, I can tell you that, just between you and me – it’s where Tony only has one gauntlet and one boot and he has to escape multiple captors. It’s really fun, dude. We’re taking everything from his first gauntlet test in the first movie up through the most extreme stuff we thought up for Iron Man 2 and The Avengers and pulling on all of it and making this one big, extended challenge of physics.
This film will also feature several faces we haven't yet seen in the franchise or associated with previous Iron Man films, but that isn't necessarily new news. Guy Pearce, James Badge Dale, Rebecca Hall and Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin are all set to appear, but what will Stark's relationships with these characters be like? How will he interact with them? Downey Jr. revealed that in this next film, actor Don Cheadle will take a more prominent "front and center" role as James Rhodes.
== TEASER ==
Since I was just talking about Flight and Don is on my mind, I’ll start with him. Rhodey is much more in the dead center of things. He’s much more dynamic. We’ve made this decision that while Tony is a technical guy, he’s not really a trained guy. There’s a lot of fun to be had with Don because he’s really good with hardware and he’s a martial artist, so it’s been really fun exploiting this possibility of Tony having moments like the one in Avengers, like the one with Cap where he decides, “Oh screw it, he probably knows what he’s doing.” So there’s a lot of that and a lot more fun and a lot more depth to Rhodey this time around.
In Iron Man 2 we did see James Rhodes take a more prominent role in the film as well as in Tony Stark's life. There was even that great scene where the two characters suited up and fought back to back, so it will be interesting to see the trust in Rhodey further explored in this third film. But what about other characters? After seeing The Avengers, one would think that some of those characters (Captain America, Thor, or maybe Black Widow) would make cameo appearances. So, will they? According to the actor, fans can expect that The Avengers characters will be very much present in this third film, even i they are not "on the ground."
The whole Avengers thing [with $1.5 billion in global box office was such a relief and such a confirmation of [Marvel Studios President] Kevin Feige’s vision for this all along. As Kevin has put it, the next step after that is to bring in someone like Shane Black and – without pretending that the Avengers don’t exist – find a way to go back to a kind of re-investigation of Tony’s world, which he thought would be, one, fun for the audience and, two, would rock in a different way than The Avengers. But we can’t help it — everywhere you look now in every Marvel movie there are opportunities where certain new pals of his could be useful. So they’re in the atmosphere, so to speak, but I wouldn’t expect to see them on the ground in this one.
Could this be a reference to S.H.I.E.L.D.? In the sky and always present, but perhaps not necessarily "on the ground," so to speak. The details remain to be seen but still, this is something to think about. The interview will continue to trickle out throughout this week on the EW's website, but you can read the previous two parts here and here. What do you think of Iron Man 3 so far? Do you think it will be difficult for this movie to live up to the previous two as well as The Avengers?
Source: EW