This Week’s
Cover: IRON MAN 2
July 17th 2009
Entertainment
Weekly's second annual Comic-Con preview issue
features Iron Man 2 on the cover, and
inside it’s packed with exclusive first looks at
highly anticipated TV shows, comic books, and
movies.
The first
Iron Man blasted Robert Downey Jr.
back to stardom, and the superhero franchise is
readying to return to the big screen on May 7,
2010. Iron Man will battle new villain
Mickey Rourke, size up Scarlett
Johansson (exclusive photo of ScarJo as
Black Widow, after the jump!), and, hopefully,
prove that the success of the first movie wasn’t
a fluke. Downey knows the movie isn't an
underdog this time around. "There are a
lot more invisible eyes on us now," he
says.
When Marvel
Studios first announced the sequel, no one was
sure what the movie would be about. Downey,
director Jon Favreau,
screenwriter Justin Theroux, and the rest of the
creative team struck upon the idea of
introducing two very different foes for Stark.
On one side is Justin Hammer (Sam
Rockwell), a fast-talking weapons
manufacturer who fancies himself the next Tony
Stark; on the other, Vanko, who, while
incarcerated in a Russian prison, creates his
own battle-suit, which shoots devastating,
whip-like beams. Hammer and Whiplash join forces
to take down Downey’s character, Tony Stark.
Rourke, for his part, wanted to instill some
lightness into the role of the heavy. "I
told Favreau, 'I don't want to just play him as
a one-dimensional p----,'" he says.
"He let me have a cockatoo, who I talk
to and get drunk with while I’m making my suit."
Just as the
deals were being hammered out, Terrence
Howard -- who had played Stark’s best
friend -- fell out of the sequel in a public
salary dispute. The role was re-cast, with Don
Cheadle stepping in. "We had to make
some tough deals," says Marvel Studios
president Kevin Feige. "When they got
public, you go, 'That sucks. Okay, you want a
peek behind the curtain? Here you are!'" Says
Cheadle, "Terrence and I couldn’t be more
different. We address it head-on in the movie in
one exchange. We're not trying to fool people."
(Cheadle admits he didn’t know much about
Marvel’s superhero before the first movie came
out: "I always thought Iron Man was a
robot.")
Adding more
flesh and blood to the new movie, Scarlett
Johansson joined the cast as Stark’s mysterious
new assistant, Natasha, who has an alter ego of
her own, Black Widow. That introduction
inevitably sparks romantic tension between Stark
and former assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth
Paltrow), who’s been promoted to CEO of
Stark Industries. "The men want it to
be, like, 'Ooh, the girls are fighting over
Tony,' but it's not as standard as that,"
says Paltrow. "There's a weird male
catfight fantasy. Downey agrees. He
believes what differentiates the franchise from
other superhero series can be summarized as
follows: "We're horny. Not, like,
can't-bring-your-kids horny, but just¼horny."
