Source:Edward Douglas

April 28, 2008

(Spoiler Warning: If you want to know absolutely nothing about the upcoming Iron Man movie then stop reading now, and go back to watching baseball or golf or whatever you normally do on a Sunday. It's only five days away and surely you can bookmark this, wait a couple days and then come back and read this, right?)

ComingSoon.net/Superhero Hype! just got back from the New York junket for Marvel Studios and Paramount's Iron Man, and while we certainly don't want to spoil anyone's funny if they've been dying to see the movie and be surprised, there's a nice little tip of the hat to Terrence Howard's James "Rhodey" Rhodes own armored incarnation. When we spoke to Howard earlier, we had to ask him what his thoughts were for his character's development in potential sequels, and always being the intelligent and consummate actors' actor, Howard shared his abundant thoughts on where he thinks things should go.

The real question on everyone's mind after seeing the movie is when we'll see Rhodey don the armor. "When Rhodey continues in his emotional evolution," Howard said quizzically. "He has to be willing to take off his suit as a lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force first, and that is a hard thing to let go of. Tony has already let go of his billionaire suit that he wore, the money-hoarding individual, and you gotta get naked to get into that suit, and Rhodey has to get naked first." (I guess that answers a question that's always been on Jerry Seinfeld's mind.)

"Tony is still pulling Rhodey up," he continued. "'You don't see it as clearly as I see it now, but here, take a look.' 'Cause Rhodey's killed a thousand people with his planes, dropped bombs, and bears no responsibility for it, but when that comes to face him, which hopefully they will do once Rhodey puts on that helmet that Tony has that's been geared towards his patterns and picks up on some of those things that Tony's responsibility and what he's done. The computer in that helmet records the brain waves, and begins to jar Rhodey and the changes begin to happen in him. He'll be a little more human."

Howard doesn't want to rush his character's transformation though. "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."

Howard didn't want to be around to watch Robert Downey Jr. go through everything that was involved with turning into Iron Man i.e. putting on the suit, etc. but he has some ideas how he could make his own transition easier. "Give me a couple drinks and I'll sit there and y'all can make the suit for me, but I think what I would have them do for me is just make a full body cast of me and have that as a mannequin and make it to fit this mannequin. I don't think Robert demanded that yet... but Robert isn't as smart as me sometimes." (The last bit was said with that glint in Howard's eyes when he's making a joke.)

Earlier, director Jon Favreau said that he was pretty sure a potential sequel would introduce War Machine and Iron Man's arch-nemesis The Mandarin (also hinted in the movie). "I think you gotta go with War Machine, you gotta give Terrence more to do," Favreau told us. "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."

Make sure to go see Iron Man when it opens on Friday, May 2 to make sure that sequel happens. (Or if you can't wait that long and need to be the first person on your block to see the movie, it has previews in some areas on Thursday at 8pm.) Look for a lot more with Favreau and the cast of the summer's first big movie right here on ComingSoon.net/Superhero Hype! in the next couple days!