5. Indie movie

April 2006. 16 years since the character was first bought by Universal, Marvel announces that Zathura director Jon Favreau would be directing the first film that the studio would produce itself – Iron Man.

With Favreau in place, the script started to come together in two drafts, written by Arthur Marcum and Matt Holloway and Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby.

The two teams worked separately, with Favreau compiling both scripts.

Go/Big Fish scribe John August performed an uncredited polish before production began.

Now it was time to find  cast. Despite Favreau mentioning in an interview that he wanted a newcomer a la Superman Returns’ Brandon Routh, he eventually cast Robert Downey Jr as Stark.

It proved to be an inspired choice. Around Downey Jr, Favreau placed Gwyneth Paltrow (as secretary Pepper Potts), Terrence Howard (as best mate Jim “Rhodey” Rhodes and Jeff Bridges as the duplicitous Obadiah Stane.

Favreau and the marketing team at Marvel and Paramount proved to be masters of the craft. Before and during production – which kicked off on March 12,2007 – the publicity onslaught became ever more powerful…