Robert Downey Jr. and Jon Favreau appeared together on Sunday at the Hero Complex Film Festival. The gents had a chat about Iron Man and Iron Man 2 (both of which played at the fest), The Avengers and Iron Man 3.
Much of the conversation seems to be humorous, but some interesting things have been revealed from the chat. /Film reports that Shane Black (Iron Man 3's director) has asked Favreau to be a consultant. That’s interesting, but what’s even more interesting is that Favreau has accepted the offer. He’ll be extremely busy for a while with promoting Cowboys & Aliens and making Magic Kingdom for Disney. Favreau also brings up a possible inconsistency in the overall framework of the Marvel universe: how would Iron Man 3 work to be a story all about Tony Stark since it (likely) takes place after The Avengers? Does he just lose all the other heroes' cell phone numbers?
Additionally, Downey revealed a dilemma that hasn’t come up with The Avengers but one that he often runs into with other projects. At the same time, he also chats about how excited he is for The Avengers:
“Well, I hate everybody. [Audience laughs] I’m not talking about the cast, I’m not talking about Joss. What I mean is I tend to look at a scene and say ‘This is absolutely impossible, we can’t shoot this, it’s horrible. I can tell you 10 other movies [sic] its been in, I refuse.’ I usually start off the morning by refusing to do what I’ve signed on to do. So I brought that attitude, happily. I just thought ‘How are you gonna put all of us clowns together? He’s wearing a suit, he’s all jacked up, he’s so and so and poor Mark Ruffalo, he’s gonna out do us’. And we’re about six weeks in and I have to say Joss Whedon is nailing it. He’s so smart and so good. And it’s gonna be great. I can’t believe I just said it, I never could’ve believed this but it’s gonna be great.”
It’s exciting that Downey seems genuinely ecstatic about The Avengers. Hopefully all of the overdone Marvel tie-ins have built up to something terrific.