Iron Man 2 Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The following post contains the descriptions of two scenes in Iron Man 2 (possible spoilers), so read on at your own risk ...

In the fictional Iron Man world, Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) helps to save many lives -- but this latest bit of news actually takes place in the real world, and involves the heroics of the actor who plays Tony Stark, Robert Downey Jr. While shooting a scene involving "a group of people running away from a group of robotic villains," an extra was knocked to the ground by a stuntman in a robot suit. With chaos ensuing during the scene, Downey Jr. was the only one to realize that the man was actually injured as he called for help while on the ground. The actor then jumped into the scene and yelled "Cut! Cut!" while the cameras were still rolling, then stayed with the fallen extra until paramedics arrived. The injured man was taken to a nearby hospital where he was diagnosed with a broken hip. We here at Cinematical wish him a speedy recovery ... and, um, we're now dying to learn more about this robot villain stampede scene. [IOL]

UPDATE: Paramount contacted Cinematical to say that the above story is not true. No one was injured on the set and no one was saved.

In other Iron Man 2 news, the website Nuke the Fridge claims to know who (or what) Stan Lee will be playing in the sequel. Fans of Marvel are already well aware of the fact that Stan Lee makes a cameo in some Marvel-related movies (based on the characters he had a part in creating), and so who will he be playing in Iron Man 2? Head after the jump to find out ...

Movies based on characters from comics published by DC and Marvel took a summer sabbatical this year -- I'm trying really hard to pretend X-Men Origins: Wolverine was only a bad dream -- but the next couple of summers promise a healthy dash of costumed superheroes to liven up movie theaters. As noted in a post earlier today, next summer will see the return of Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark in Jon Favreau's Iron Man 2. Two summers hence will feature the big-screen debut of Kenneth Branagh's vision of Thor, with Chris Hemsworth playing the hammer-wielding Norse god and Tom Hiddleston as his adopted brother / arch-nemesis Loki, followed by Joe Johnston's adventure The First Avenger: Captain America, set primarily during World War II. And 2012 will finally bring superhero team-up The Avengers, plus another unspecified movie. Could it be Edgar Wright's Ant-Man? Or something else?

Without being an expert on any of these characters -- for that I bow gratefully to our own Elisabeth Rappe -- from strictly a movie fan's perspective, I'm most anticipating The First Avenger: Captain America. That's because director Joe Johnston hasn't let me down yet, and the film's World War II setting and sense of wholesome, patriotic adventure play to his strengths. But the more I think about these projects, the more I like the variety of settings and styles. Sure, they're all superheroes, but there's plenty of room for the films to establish their own identities.

What do you think? What's your most anticipated Marvel movie? Feel free to suggest other characters that should have their own movie in the comments.

Above: Check out new logos for the upcoming Marvel films from E3, via AICN

The Marvel movie slate for the next couple of years has been firmly established: Iron Man 2 in May 2010, Thor in May 2011, and The First Avenger: Captain America in July 2011, with The Avengers to follow in Summer 2012. Kevin Feige, the company's president of production, revealed at an industry conference this weekend that another new Marvel movie will be released in 2012, according to First Showing, and also provided tidbits of information about their other projects.

• Iron Man 2: The goal is to carry over the humor and tone of the first film, while adding more characters and upping the action. Scarlett Johannson's character has "two sides," and the actress is signed for multiple movies.
• Thor: No Shakespearean dialogue (per Kenneth Branagh's wishes)! No Don Blake! Primarily set on Earth (though also on Asgard and "other worlds")! How exactly is that going to work? No idea!
• The First Avenger: Captain America: Will be "primarily" set during World War II. With Joe Johnston at the helm, Feige described the picture in terms of the director / visual effects designer's past work (The Rocketeer, October Sky, Star Wars). Sidekick Bucky will appear "in some capacity."
• The Avengers: Captain America will be involved in the plot "from the get go."
• Ant-Man: Edgar Wright will be submitting another draft after he completes Scott Pilgrim.

Feige "Feige kept saying often that he'd love for audiences to have the same experience that comic book readers have - where characters make surprise appearances almost out of nowhere in issues they pick up." To be continued...

Above: Mickey Rourke visited a Russian prison to prepare for his role in Iron Man 2

In an new and fascinating interview with Mickey Rourke over at The Guardian, the actor touches upon everything from his days living in a $600-a-month apartment to his comeback role in The Wrestler to losing his entire family to the preparations he had to make for his part in Iron Man 2 to how he really feels about all these superhero movies. One part you Iron Man fans might find interesting was when Rourke talks about having to learn Russian for his role as Tony Stark's nemesis Ivan (aka Whiplash). According to Rourke, he'll be speaking Russian for most of the film.

He says, "I decided to do half my role in Russian, and that's hard because the Russian language doesn't roll off the English-speaking tongue very easily. I spent three hours a day with a teacher, and after two weeks I know four sentences! Let me see, it's sort of like... 'Yezzamee menya... Yezzamee manya obott... Er, nemaboootty menya...'" He later adds the translation: "If someone kills me, don't wake me up, because I'd rather be dead than live in your world." But even though he's co-starring in what is perhaps next year's biggest superhero film, Rourke still isn't too keen on those types of movies. He notes, "I'm not gonna rush out and see the next Batman, I'm not big on formula movies. I don't like all that Spider-Man shit."

On his future projects, Rourke briefly talks about his upcoming role in The Expendables ("Stallone, when I was flat broke and I could hardly pay for a bowl of spaghetti in a restaurant, gave me a couple of weeks on Get Carter, and that paid my f**kin' rent for eight months"), and says he'd like to get Mick Jagger to star opposite him in Larry Clark's Mona Lisa. Check out the entire interview over at The Guardian - it's a fun read.

Whoever wrote, "Success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan," obviously lived before the Internet was created. Nowadays, we're all too eager to find a fall guy -- either an individual or a group -- on whom failure can be blamed. The most recent example is Terminator Salvation. Our own Jessica Barnes suggested several culprits, including the Internet itself: "Terminator could be a good example of how filmmaking at 'gunpoint' never ends well. It's possible that the leaked ending forced WB's hand to create something different when in fact we should have just let McG do his thing with the original script."

Lane Brown at New York Magazine's Vulture blog takes that idea further, giving odds on four "massively anticipated" movies that will 'have their failure blamed on a director listening to people on the Internet.' Lane lists Jon Favreau's Iron Man 2, Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are, and Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables as the most likely suspects.

We're on a slippery slope here, because as a dedicated movie site written by hard-core film buffs, Cinematical is inclined to obsess over every little item on upcoming movies, freely offering our strong opinions way in advance, often prompting dozens of different opinions from readers. Personally, I see nothing wrong with filmmakers paying attention to what fans are saying. And if they choose to change their movies based on the opinions of an unruly mob of fanboys, that says more about them than it does about the Internet. What do you think? Should Internet fanboys continue to have their say? Or should we all shut up and wait for the movie to come out before saying anything?

Two more have been added to the ever large Iron Man 2 roster, according to The Hollywood Reporter and with production all nice, quiet and secret save for Jon Favreau's Tweets, we can speculate endlessly on what their additions might mean.

The first is a no-brainer, as Clark Gregg is returning as Agent Phil Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D. Having hammered out the acronym, he gets to come back and try to keep Tony on the straight, narrow, and heroic. I think that's nice. You could just have any old agent, but they're keeping Gregg.

The female addition is what's really interesting. Kate Mara has joined the cast in an unspecified role. I'm going to just throw out a random guess (based largely on her looks) that she's playing Bethany Cabe. I can't believe they'd throw another love interest or action chick into the mix, but Cabe helps to defend Tony against Whiplash and Justin Hammer. She also suits up in some old Iron Man armor alongside Rhodes' War Machine to battle the giant robot Ultimo. The groundwork is there, but it's an awful lot of action and romance for one film. Perhaps Cabe will simply show up as Stark Industries' Head of Security, ready to do her part later on? Maybe she's just a love interest for Hammer? We'll know soon enough.

But wow, three redheads in one Marvel film? I thought it was Wolverine who had that particular fetish. Go Tony!

Iron Man 2 has been filming all of three days, and no move by the cast or crew has gone undocumented by paparazzi or Jon Favreau. But that doesn't stop the rumor machine from flying. The latest is that Commissioner Gordon has jumped the DC- Warner Bros ship to make a visit to the Marvel Universe. (That's one hell of a crossover.)

IESB.net is reporting that Gary Oldman was seen on set today, though no one knows if he's actually playing a role or if he was just visiting. Oldman is currently filming Book of Eli in New Mexico so if it is a role, it can't be anything much more than a cameo.

Rumors abound that he's playing Howard Stark, Tony's father, which Tim Robbins denied all connection to a few weeks ago. But IESB has also heard that John Slattery of Mad Men fame is playing the Stark patriarch, which would honestly make a lot more sense.

So, stay tuned -- between Favreau and Just Jared, nothing is staying secret on the Iron Man 2 set for very long. Then again, not even the cast is privy to some of the mysteries. According to Favreau, Garry Shandling declared: "I can't wait to see the movie to see who I actually play." If he doesn't know, then we can't pretend to!

UPDATE: Oldman's long-time manager, Douglas Urbanski (or someone claiming to be Urbanski) has left a comment below stating the following: "I am Gary Oldman's manager. He did not visit the set for Iron Man and there are currently no plans for him to appear in the film."