And yeah, Robert Downey Jr. and all the actors (Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard) are already contracted to appear (typically in these franchises, the actors are locked in for three picture deals from the get-go in case these things take off – this is why, for example, you probably won’t see Tobey Maguire for “Spider-Man 4,” because his contract is up and he’s sick of that shit).
However, one key player who’s not locked in for the next sequel yet is perhaps the most essential ingredient – director Jon Favreau. What’s worse he wasn’t aware of the ‘Iron Man 2’ sequel announcement until Marvel unveiled it yesterday (clearly, he knew it was coming, but they didn’t notify him when it happened).
Entertainment Weekly caught up with Favreau and while the director said he was enthusiastic to return to tell more Tony Stark stories, he’s still not a lock which should be worrisome for everyone who loved the film.
So will he be involved in the sequel? It’s not yet set in stone.
“We’ve been speaking informally about it,” Favreau said. “In concept we would all love to work together again. But I found out about the announcement last night, so it’s not something that — we would definitely love to collaborate more with the sequel.”
Weird pause there, right?
“There’s no formal arrangement yet, but in theory we would all love to see it happen…. There’s definitely a lot of ideas that we all have now. This type of movie is based on serialized materials, so it lends itself very easily to [many different sequel possibilities]. There’s definitely a level of enthusiasm from myself and the cast to tell more stories.”
The geeks [ed. dude, you’re writing about this shit all the time now] will be happy to know that Favreau also talked about “The Avengers” movie and how Iron Man 3 would be a good segue to that franchise.
Yeah. I think it would be a very smart third film in the Iron Man series. It’s very difficult to keep these franchises from running out of gas after two [movies]. The high point seems to be the second one, judging by history: If you just look at the consensus in the reviews, you see that “X-Men 2” and “Spider-Man 2″ are sort of seen by the fans as the sort of high point of both franchises, though I don’t necessarily agree with that. But to be able to fold it into an Avengers is something you just couldn’t do in another studio, and I think what Marvel is about is stuff you can’t do at a bigger studio. They gave me tremendous creative freedom; they gave me tremendous freedom in casting, at the end of the day. Even though there was concern, they ultimately backed a decision [to hire Downey to play Tony Stark] that I don’t think a studio would’ve, and now they’re benefiting from having that nimble creative team. And that’s, honestly, the most attractive aspect of working with them again.”
Note how Favreau points out how Marvel had initial trepidation about casting RDJ, something they’ve changed their position on many times now. Let’s face it though, all this for not. Unless they’re completely stupid, (and or too greedy; presumably they’ll have to up his fee) Marvel will tap the original director to helm the sequel. Arguably, there’s been no other comic-book film that’s been this well-received by critics and fans and to fuck with that formula would be just retarded.
In other related Marvel hero movie news. It’s been rumored that Matthew McConaughey will be cast as Captain America, and that Josh Schwartz – creator of the celebrated, but very average teen emodrama’s “The O.C.” and “Gossip Girl” has been tapped to write a teen emodrama prequel to the “X-Men” movies (a godawful idea if there ever was one – though we bet the chances of this one actually ever being produced are slim to none). Oh yeah and “Antman,” as done by overrated “funny man” Edgar Wright, is evidently “still in development.”
