Marvel Studios took the movie world by surprise upon hiring writer/director Shane Black to helm Iron Man 3. Jon Favreau, who directed the first two films in the franchise, stepped down from his directorial duties to work on Disney’s Magic Kingdom.
It’s been about a month or so since we’ve learned about Black stepping into the director’s seat, and now we’ve got some interesting tidbits about what we can expect in Iron Man 3, courtesy of Ain’t It Cool News:
“[Black] is scheduled to meet with Robert Downey Jr. this week when he returns to L.A. Downey will be contributing to the story and Shane will be writing it in addition to directing.
"The studio was not happy with the direction "Iron Man 2" took. "Iron Man 3" will not be another ‘two men in iron suits fighting each other’ film. Instead, it will be more like a Tom Clancy-thriller, with Iron Man fighting real-world villians.
"'Iron Man 3' will be made after The Avengers and will not feature any other heroes from the Marvel Universe. Marvel is only doing crossover characters to lead up to The Avengers, and once that film is released, the plan is to go back to self-containted single-character stories.”
Perhaps most exciting is that we won’t be getting any more Marvel cameos. For instance, Samuel L. Jackson popping up as Nick Fury in Iron Man 2 was a nice little touch, but there was far too much emphasis on the cameos, so much so that the actual plot felt like more of an afterthought than the obvious Avengers tie-ins.
It’s also great to know that Black – as some were expecting – will take up screenwriting duties in addition to his work behind the camera. He’s an excellent screenwriter who’s proven versatility over the years.
How the “Tom Clancy-thriller” and “real world villains” aspects of the story will turn out remains to be seen. The first film followed the traditional origins narrative, but it survived because of the uniqueness of the characters, particularly the heavily flawed protagonist Tony Stark. The second film developed Stark further as a character, but provided an unfortunately misshapen narrative. Hopefully Black can get things back on track while simultaneously providing a new and fresh perspective on the Iron Man universe.