The year’s first summer movie, Iron Man, may well be the best superhero film since Spider-Man 2, and will almost certainly reign as the best superhero film of 2008. If quality translates into box office, we’re guaranteed an Iron Man sequel or two*; this weekend was the Iron Man junket in far off New York City, and Jon Favreau and Terrence Howard shared some thoughts on the continuing adventures of the Armored Avenger.
“I think you gotta go with War Machine, you gotta give Terrence more to do,” Favreau told Coming Soon’s Ed Douglas. “He really had to be patient in this one, and he really could have been Tony Stark if we wanted to go against the grain of what was in the books. He characterizes that, and once you break him out of the role that he was relegated to in this one, I think he could go toe-to-toe with Robert, and it could be a cool buddy set-up. Then you need some bad guys, and I think the bad guys are going to be tech-based for the most part, seeing what’s worked about this film.”
One of those bad guys might be The Mandarin, who never appears or is mentioned in Iron Man, but who is certainly evoked, if in a way that only fans will catch.
Howard’s not sure he wants War Machine to appear in the sequel. “The question is whether we will take the time to put on the Iron Man suit first and then have to fight with Iron Man to take it off me and then ultimately build a new suit for Rhodey or whether they go right into the second one of them building the suit. I would prefer to wait for the third one. I’d prefer to let it grow a little bit and then after the third one, they could go into its own franchise of War Machine later on. I don’t want to introduce War Machine too early for my own monetary benefits.”
Iron Man opens this Friday. See it, motherfuckers. Before then, head to Coming Soon to read more scoops about sequel possibilities.
*here are my guesses for sequel titles: Iron Man: War Machine and Iron Man: Armor Wars. And the fourth will be Iron Man: Can You Believe That One Time In the Comics They Made Iron Man Evil and Then Introduced An Alternate Reality Teenage Version of Tony Stark To Reboot It All?