"Iron Man 2" begins shooting!

Emily Blunt out of "Iron Man 2", replaced by Scarlett Johannson

Source: Deadline Hollywood

I've already posted my scoop that Mickey Rourke will play the Russian villain in Iron Man 2 in a Marvel Studios deal that started out lowball and went up a lot. Now I'm told that Emily Blunt won't be in the sequel and Black Widow will now be played by Scarlett Johannson. (Interesting because Scarlett actually screen-tested for the role and didn't get it.) But I hear that, unlike Mickey's money, the deal for her is "just the opposite, a terrible deal made by CAA," one of my insiders says. "It's as bad as any deal that I've heard. It's lowball money. And it ties her to countless movies, including that ensemble The Avengers, which is what makes this brutal for a lot of actors." As for Blunt, I'm told she fell out not by choice but only because Fox exercised an option that the studio had from The Devil Wears Prada to make her do the upcoming film starring Jack Black, Gullivers Travels.

That's really a shame; Blunt would've been a much better choice for the role, and I think she'd have better chemistry with Robert Downey Jr. And besides, after "The Spirit" fiasco, you'd think that Scarlett Johansson would know to stay away from comic book movies. *Sigh* We'll miss you Emily...

Tim Robbins joins "Iron Man 2"

Source: Latino Review/ComicBookMovie.com

The role of Howard Stark, founder of Stark 
Industries and Father of Tony (a.k.a. Iron Man), may have been given to actor/activist Tim Robbins, best known for his putrescent escape through a poop pipe in Stephen King's Shawshank Redemption. 

This brings up the question of why Jon Favreau dumped Gerard Sanders, who previously appeared in the part. CBM believes that it is because father Stark will be involved in an important storyline which will introduce the super soldier Captain America, and set-up two other Marvel movies, namely The Avengers and The First Avenger: Captain America. 

Also, some previous rumors of other Avengers have been confirmed by Latino Review's source. Hawkeye and Black Widow are mentioned as definitely having parts in Iron Man II.

Stupid decision of the day: Terrence Howard drops out of Iron Man 2

Don Cheadle is stepping in to replace Terrence Howard in "Iron Man 2," Marvel Studios' sequel to its summer blockbuster.

In the movie, Howard played Jim Rhodes, Tony Stark/Iron Man's best friend and future armor-clad hero War Machine. One scene featured Howard looking at a silver suit of armor and saying "Next time," a line that caused great delight for fans.

But there will be no next time for Howard.

Marvel had no comment, but sources close to the deal said negotiations with Howard fell through over financial differences, among other reasons. Marvel, which had wanted to work with Cheadle, then decided to take the role in another direction and approached the actor, who is shooting Antoine Fuqua's "Brooklyn's Finest" with Richard Gere and Ethan Hawke.

Rhodes is expected to play a larger part in the sequel, which is rumored to go beyond high-tech villains. Justin Theroux is writing the screenplay.

Jon Favreau is returning as director, and Robert Downey Jr. is expected back as billionaire industrialist Stark/Iron Man. Gwyneth Paltrow also is expected to be back as Stark's assistant, Pepper Potts.

Cheadle, repped by UTA, most recently starred in "Traitor," a thriller on which he was also a producer. He will next be seen in DreamWorks' "Hotel for Dogs."

Iron Man - REVIEW

Superhero movies are a tricky thing to pull off. They need to balance the suspension of the disbelief with enough reality to still make everything feel believable and human. Iron Man, though not a top tier super hero in the vein of Spidey, Batman, or Superman, gets a surprisingly wonderful big screen first outing that puts him on the same level as the above mentioned heroes. The story begins with Tony Stark, a billionaire weapons designer nick-named "the merchant of death", who is in Afghanistan demonstrating his latest invention. Soon after the demonstration he falls under attack by militants, who take him captive and force him to replicate some of his designs. Instead, he builds a suit of metal which he uses to escape before being rescued and taken back to America. Once he returns, he announces his company will no longer be making weapons, which causes the stock to plummet 40 points, much to the dismay of Board member Obadiah (Jeff Bridges). In his mansion, Stark begins to create an updated version of the metal suit he used in Afghanistan, and plans to use to to destroy the weapons that had fallen into the hands of the terrorists. However, what makes Tony Stark different from most superheroes out to fix the world, is that he's so wildly different from the mould. In his early 40's, an alcoholic, a gambler, a party boy, he's everything that superheroes typically aren't. This actually makes him more interesting, mostly due to Robert Downey Jr.'s wonderful portrayal of Stark, combined with the script's smart and funny dialogue. Downey also has great chemistry with co-stars Terrence Howard (as a close friend in the military), Gwyneth Paltrow (as personal assistant Pepper Potts), and Bridges. Howard, though a bit underused is good (and there's a major hint that he might get his own suit in a sequel), but of the supporting roles, Paltrow and Bridges dominate. Paltrow is strong and funny- a perfect romantic foil for Downey-, while Bridges transforms from a sycophant into a menacing rival. The special effects blend so seamlessly that I never once thought of them as effects; they were as realistic as any of the people. Perhaps the most interesting thing about Iron Man though, is how little "action" is put into the 2 hour running time. Despite this, the film is still immensely entertaining because it has a good story to tell. My only complaint is that the climactic battle isn't quite as exciting as it could have been. It's not a crushing disappointment, but after Transformer's robot smack down or The Golden Compass's bear fight from last year, it doesn't feel just right (can't the hero just defeat the villain out of sheer strength/wit as opposed to getting someone else to help him for once in these movies?). However, for the most part Iron Man is a hugely entertaining, smart, and well acted big budget movie that should bump this second tier hero up a notch or two in the Marvel hierarchy.

Grade: B+

Current Nominations: Best Picture(#2), Best Director - John Favreau(#2), Best Actor - Robert Downey Jr. (#1 WINNER), Best Supporting Actress - Gwyneth Paltrow (#1 WINNER), Best Supporting Actor - Jeff Bridges (#2), Best Adapted Screenplay, (#1 WINNER) Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Editing (#1 WINNER), Best Visual Effects (#1 WINNER), Best Sound Editing/Mixing (#1 for both)

Number of 2008 films seen: 5

First review of "Iron Man"!!!

Source: Scifimoviepage.com

Rating: 3/5

Superhero origin stories are usually a drag. After all, do we really want to see how Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider or how the Fantastic Four gets bombarded with gamma rays whilst adrift in space?

Not really. Audiences just want to get to the good stuff straight away — Fantastic Four’s The Thing clobbering Dr. Doom — without any dull exposition.

Too much exposition and too little action pay-off threaten to derail Iron Man, but the origin story is so intrinsic to the character and the plot that there is no way getting around it. After all, then Iron Man would just be some guy in a robot suit. Instead he is Tony Stark, billionaire playboy owner of Stark Industries, one of the U.S.’s biggest military weapons producers. Stark (Robert Downey, Jr. in an energetic performance) is kidnapped by some terrorists after demonstrating some of Stark Industry’s latest military technology to top brass in Afghanistan.

Ah, how the sands of global politics have shifted. In the Reagan years Afghan militia were the heroes in movies such as Rambo III. Here they are the villains. (In the original 1960s Stan Lee comic books Stark was captured by the Vietcong.) The Afghan villains here are however depoliticised. They seem to have no radical Islamic political agenda and are merely generic bad guys. All they want is power for the sake of it. What they are going to do once they get power is a bit of a mystery. Thus there is no America being the “Great Satan” speeches by the head villain. Just a lot of vague grousing about becoming the next Genghis Khan stuff — nothing to overtly alienate potential Muslim audiences.

The Mujadin, er sorry, Afghan bad guys force the captive Stark into building a new high-tech missile system for them. How they realistically expected him to build a piece of leading-edge technology for them in a cave using a blast furnace is a bit of mystery. One can see that it is all written by the same screenplay writers who expect audiences to buy what happens next: instead of building the missile for them, Stark builds an super-powered iron bodysuit right under their noses. The bodysuit is bulletproof, can fly and boasts a flamethrower too. Pretty impressive for what seems to be a few days’ work!

"What makes Iron Man work is an electrifying performance by Robert Downey, Jr . . ."

Stark uses the suit to escape and eventually winds up back in the States where he announces in a informal press conference that Stark Industries will be quitting the lucrative weapons manufacture business; something which he decided upon after realizing that the Afghan baddies have been supplied with Stark weapons all along, probably by someone within the company itself. That “someone” turns out to be his second-in-command, Obadiah Stane (played by a bald Jeff Bridges). It seems that Bridges’ cigar-chomping power-suited baldy is (surprise! surprise!) the villain all along and has actually ordered a hit on Stark so that he can take control of the company. Stane also discovers what Tony Stark has been up to since he came back from captivity in Afghanistan, namely secretly building a more advanced prototype of the metal suit he used to escape. Naturally Stane builds an even bigger metal robot (named Iron Monger, but never called that in the movie) with which Iron Man faces off during the film’s climax.

There is a noticeable dip in the action once Stark returns to the States and starts building his second robot suit, especially since we have already sat through some scenes of him having built the first suit. However Downey Jr.’s charismatic performance, some unexpected humor and exceptional special effects pull the movie through these scenes so that we can get to the mano-a-mano super-powered robots battle towards the end. These scenes are well-done, but pales somewhat to the fight scenes in last year’s Transformers.

But CGI robot fight scenes aren’t what Iron Man is about. What makes the movie work (and it does work despite its mistakes) is an electrifying performance by Robert Downey, Jr., clever and witty dialogue plus some neat special effects and some nice humorous touches. Ideally one should hate the cocky and obnoxious Stark, especially during the movie’s early scenes in which one is confronted by his envy-inducing playboy lifestyle. We are supposed to hate sleazy weapons manufacturers, right? Yet Downey, Jr. actually makes us like Stark. This is Downey’s movie and he carries it through with aplomb. The supporting cast (also including Terrence Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow as loyal sidekicks) do okay, but actually have very little to do. This is Downey’s show, and the other actors seem to realise this and never try to steal the movie from him.

The first real blockbuster of 2008, Iron Man is fluff. But it is hugely entertaining fluff. Less of a butt-numbing experience than Spider-man 3, but more substantial than Fantastic Four – Rise of the Silver Surfer, Iron Man clocks in at 126 minutes. Despite that small dip in the action, the running time is just about right. Audiences looking for grand escapist fare at cinemas this summer won’t mind having spent their price of admission on it. Be sure to get some popcorn too . . .

Some notes:

• The film’s politics are astoundingly naïve in the way it ignores the realities of the global weapons business. For a more realistic view, check out Lord of War starring Nicolas Cage. In a way it is a mistake getting Iron Man involved in “everyday” stuff such as fixing global wrongs. Does this mean that he is going to solve all of our wars for us? Should he have been called Globocop instead? Iron Man should ideally be battling supervillains and evil masterminds.
• In a way Iron Man is the ultimate wish-fulfilment role model for picked-upon adolescents. After all, who wouldn’t want to be a super-rich billionaire, have chicks all over them and use their money to become a real-life superhero and kick peoples’ asses?
• Famously in the comics Stark fought a battle with alcoholism. In this movie he chugs down a lot of booze in his “pre-hero” phase, but seems to sober up as soon as he becomes Iron Man.
• The movie ends somewhat abruptly and will probably have audiences wanting more . . .