Iron Man Forever

After a barrage of media, including various posters, a behind the scenes peek courtesy of Entertainment Tonight (above), and a slew of cool-looking trailers (see below), Iron Man 2 is finally upon us.

But as we lead up to its 30 April release date, talk is already turning to the future, and a proposed Iron Man 3.

“There’s an Iron Man 3,” Favs has said. “Here’s how I know. When they make the option deals, they include Iron Man 3. So I know they’re planning on 3.”

Which, of course comes with its own set of unique challenges. The first Iron Man delivered on zero expectations. The second comes with higher expectations, but trepidation over the quick production. Could a third be stretching the material until it snaps?

“We had to walk a fine line,” Favreau has said. “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.”

Though Mandarin (above) was eventually discarded as the main villain in Iron Man 2 (after Mark Millar convinced Favs the character was too ‘out there’ for a first sequel), the second film still definitely works toward the Mandarin story.

“We’re not feeling any pressure right now to rush to the whole Mandarin sub-throughline,” says Favreau. “It’s still intact. We’re consistent with it. We know where it’s going, but I think audiences are pretty sophisticated.

“I watched the whole first season of Lost and of Heroes not having to know every thing about what was going on but I felt there was a consistency to those worlds.

"So in this case, with Mickey [Rourke], we definitely did want to have an origin story because we wanted an origin story to shadow and mirror Tony because he’s introduced this technology into the world and how does that affect the world?”

But this is bigger than just Iron Man alone. This is also about Thor and Captain America, who are both expected to unite with Tony Stark and Nick Fury (among others) in the cinematic version of The Avengers.

With Joss Whedon reportedly close to signing a deal to helm that flick, and Thor and Captain America already both well into their production, an Iron man 3 would have to be juggled in somewhere around all the other Marvel products making their way to cinemas.

It’ll be a tough one to map, but we’re pretty sure Favreau is the man for the job...

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