Parlez-vous français ?
If you did speak French, you might be able to help us unravel a little conundrum. See, a behind-the-scenes featurette has popped up on ironman.fr - - the French IRON MAN 2 site. The clip is news in itself, as it shows more footage of Tony Stark’s drag-racing visit to Monaco with commentary from Robert " Iron Man" Downey Jr., Jon " Happy Hogan" Favreau, Mickey " Whiplash" Rourke and Scarlett " Black Widow" Johannson about the making of the movie. Fairly standard EPK stuff. That’s not what’s raising some eyebrows.
What’s raising some eyebrows is a background character who could possibly be Chris “ Thor” Hemsworth making a cameo (and thanks to Cinemablend for the heads up). See for yourself…
If the clip doesn’t play for you, ol’ Witchfinder Pinchuk has got a screenshot for you to inspect...
Now, G-Man is dubious about this. He doesn't believes it's another example of Marvel movies’ actor-sharing interconnectedness ( Nick Fury letting himself into Tony Stark’s condo in IRON MAN, Tony Stark grabbing a beer with Thunderbolt Ross in INCREDIBLE HULK, and so on), but I think there’s a possibility. Beyond the superficial visual similarities - - which can be easily distorted since the character’s out of focus - - the fact that the camera lingers on an ostensibly-peripheral character for a beat after the main character has left and then starts racking him into focus before an awkwardly-abrupt cut my draws attention. Putting on my Sherlock Holmes-style deer slayer cap for a moment, I would suspect that Marvel might not want to reveal this cameo for the time being, so they’ve edited it down to keep the actual reveal for the actual release.
And perhaps, if I spoke French, the conversation between Tony and the Monaco official might actually be going like this...
“We have Thor in the cell next to you. Don’t look at him, whatever you do.”
“Alright, I won’t look at him.”
What do you think, Comic Vine gumshoes? Could that be Thor? Or have we all lost our minds? Have we stared long enough into the abyss that the abyss is now staring back at us?
-- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Comics and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia Comics. Watch out for the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover collection this March - - available for pre-order now on Amazon.com.
