man thats badass... i was wondering if they were gonna use the song iron man in the trailer and just when i thought about it...i heard it lol
Growing up, Iron Man was by far my favorite comic book superhero. I used to own Iron Man #1 but sold it for $50 about 15 years ago. Sure hope this turns out to be a good franchise like Spiderman.
It's only a trailer but it looks decent enough. At least it's not Nic Cage. I think he's a decent actor. He was good in Restoration. Also had a funny character of sorts in Rented Lips. At least he's not Nic Cage.
The Ultimate Universe version of Nick Fury is black, so that is probably where they got that from. The guy who does the comics 101 column on comics101.com (Scott Tipton) actually complained specifically that it seemed like they designed him with Sam Jackson in mind specifically in the hopes that he would someday play that role. Linkage
Iron Man is the first in house Marvel movie, which means the company has more control over creative content than any past Marvel movies. Favreau has been an amazing director and started a myspace page just to listen to suggestions (he also played a lawyer in Daredevil). It is the first Marvel movie where editors of the comics were called in to make sure that the film captured the essence of the comic. The cast list is: Robert Downey Jr. -Iron Man/ Tony Stark Terrance Howard - Jim Rhodes, who will be war machine if there is a sequel Jeff Bridges- Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger Gwyneth Paltrow -Pepper Potts, personal assistant to Stark Sam L. Jackson- Nick Fury (Nick Fury in the ultimate universe was based on SLJ, who gave his permission to use his likeness). Hillary Swank, Jon Favreau, Stan Lee all have cameos. I'm very happy with what they did to the suit, we will see the Mark 1 tin can suit as well as a few others. A lot of love went into this film and I think it shows. If successful, we'll see a sequel as well as an Avengers movie with Hulk, Cap, Thor and a few others. A Hulk reboot will come out in July, Edward Norton starring, who rewrote some of the screenplay himself. Hulk is riskier, but its an inhouse movie so they will make it more accurate to the feel of the comics and there will be much more smashing.
I should also add than an Avengers movie would be a bad idea. Having too many superheroes in one film doesn't work. The Fantastic Four movies illustrate that, though other problems also plagued those two films. Marvel would do best to develop all of the characters independent of each other in separate movies. The Avengers concept only works in series and won't fly in individual films. There wouldn't be enough interesting plot lines for each hero and the movie would probably degenerate into mostly special effects, fights and flash. The first Hulk movie was kind of cheesy, the Nick Nolte weirdness was way over the top and ruined it for me. But the Hulk is a harder concept for a movie because, IMO, Bruce Banner doesn't have the rich plot lines that Peter Parker and Tony Stark offer.
I think they can pull off an Avengers movie, they did ok with the X-Men movies. They'll just have to focus the character development on a 2-3 of them. Since Iron Man and Captain America are already getting their own movies they won't have to be developed as much.
The X-Men movies on the other hand, were quite good and had more heroes than a typical Avengers team. What happens is that the movies end up focusing more on one particular character (see Wolverine in the X-Men movies) while still having the other characters as more than background. Now, there are problems in that people are not all fans of the same character, but that again didn't stop the X-Men movies from being smash hits -- I personally don't care for Wolverine, and would have preferred more time was spent on Nightcrawler, but it didn't stop me from buying all 3 DVDs. In an Avengers movie I would guess the focus would be on Cap and/or Iron Man, even though I favor Thor and the Pyms or even some of the later Avengers like Wonder Man and Ms. Marvel. Eventually with the success of individual super heroes in the medium, one would think the team ups would be inevitable, just as they were in the comics and on TV (Batman and Superman being followed by the Justice League).
If they are smart and give one or two heroes primary roles in an Avengers movie, it could work. But if they try to spread things out evenly it will fail. I hope they develop Captain America and (esp) Thor on their own first. But too many chiefs and not enough Indians in a movie could be a problem. Sometimes feature actors don't like to play 3rd and 4th fiddles. I still think it would likely be too crowded. The X-Men don't really compare to the Avengers because they are all lesser characters, except for maybe Professor X and Wolverine. Most of the Avengers are stars on their own.
The idea is, if you do a couple iron man movies, a few cap movies, a hulk movie and maybe a thor or black panther movie, you won't need to establish the deep background of each character so that you won't waste time on providing origins. If they make anything close to the Ultimates, that would be the right balance between characters and would leave room for a good story, too. Again, the Avengers comic books have a long history of success despite that each team is full of big guns, but I think its a straw man argument to say the movie will definetly fail if they don't create primary characters, because its a guarantee that they will focus on some characters more than others, most likely iron man and cap. Thor will be providing muscle and the others will fall into their own roles. If they do it like the comic books, which is the benefit of having marvel make them in house, it should be much better than fantastic four and x-men, where fox pretty much said that they would do their own thing and worked with their formulas, as they always do. Marvel's key thing is getting actors who are excited to play their roles and who see it as an epic move, Norton himself as well as samuel L jackson are comic geeks and are in it for the long haul. A lot was planned with the future in mind to get actors who would accept an Avengers movie being an eventuality with that being a goal, not a downside, of accepting a role as an avengers member. Not all team movies are failures (see oceans 11 but not the sequel), if the actors accept their place in the team.
I see your point, but just because something works in the comics doesn't mean it will in feature movies. If, as you suggest, they develop the characters first and then try an Avengers movie, fine with me. Whatever. Just give Iron Man and Thor a few chances on their own because they deserve it IMO. If they do make an Avengers movie, I want it to be good but have my doubts.
I think the ONLY problem I see an Iron Man franchise having is recognizable villains. I mean, even if you never picked up a comic, you would still know who the Joker is, who Green Goblin is, who Magneto is, etc. Iron Man...his main villains are kinda forgettable (I would hate to see an Iron Man movie with Ultron as the villain). Other than that, I think it will do well in theaters. They're taking a more comical approach to Tony Stark's character (this is comparing him to the other billionaire playboy, Bruce Wayne) which would be nice to see. For you comic book geeks: I started to dislike Iron Man after the "Civil War" storyline. Talk about sell out.
Spoiler Tony Stark recognized that the registration act was inevitable (he's a futurist, its what he does). He lays it all out in Illuminati before the Stamford explosion even happens. He did everything he could to minimize the damage that would be caused in the process. Captain America choose to stand by abstract ideals instead of looking out for the people he is supposed to protect. It is easy to side with Cap, you are siding with liberty and civil rights. Siding with Iron Man is a recognition that no matter how much we would all like to zealously cling to our ideals, sometimes you are faced with no appealing options and are forced to choose the lesser of two evils. You find out in the end that even Cap recognizes that he was wrong to violently resist the registration act.
I dunno, the main character carries the movie, IMO. As long as you throw in a cool villain, who cares who it is? X-Men 2 had Stryker and Lady Deathstrike... who the heck is that? I think they made Stryker up for the movie, and most non-geeks wouldn't recognize Deathstrike. And can you name three Hulk villains? I could...barely, and I've been reading comics my entire life. Heard of these guys? ZZax, The Leader, The Abomination? Maybe that's why Ang Lee just cast the inner demon as the villain, (and those lame Hulk Dogs) which didn't work.
I think that's right, as long as the villain is threatening enough, its really the main character that drives the story, there are probably only four villains that are recognized by mainstream audiences, joker, lex luthor, green goblin and magneto. Any more than that adds points to your geek meter. Stryker in X2 was an actual villain, but was in a single storyline in the early 80's (in which he died) and was a religious reverend, so his name and hatred was the only thing that transferred over, might as well have been new. Iron man has had a derth of good villains, but he's had a fair amount of cool looking ones, basically bigger stronger armoured suits (crimson dynamo, titanium man). Mandarin was initially the villain but I think he was scrapped, probably for the better because he's a pretty lame villain. Obadiah Stane is more fitting as an antagonist, because he's a genius inventor and strategist, but uses those abilities to gain power, as opposed to stark who is more of an inventor who struggles to use his abilities for good. Iron Monger vs. Iron Man, is a simplistic matchup, but at least it makes sense. Is it bad that I can name about 13 hulk villains off the top of my head?
