Favreau eventually got his way, and Downey was cast – but despite the fact that an Iron Man movie had, in some form or another, been in the works for two decades, the story was in a state of complete disarray. With two teams of writers working on the script, ultimately, the central villain was scrapped at the last minute. Favreau had even told audiences at Comic-Con in 2006 that the villain would be The Mandarin – and according to producer Kevin Feige, The Mandarin was in “every” script until “about 10 weeks” before shooting started. Favreau made the call to nix the character after realizing that it would be “distasteful” to use him the way he’s “depicted in the books.”
In addition to the fact that he was a walking racist caricature, The Mandarin’s storyline in the script was dumb as hell, apparently involving him “digging a tunnel beneath Stark Industries to steal Tony’s secrets.” So, after losing the supervillain’s Shawshank-but-evil plan, and even the villain himself, the production was seemingly backed into a corner – that is until Favreau randomly asked: “Do we just make Jeff Bridges the bad guy?” And so Bridges’ character Obidiah Stane became the new villain at the last possible minute.
This meant shooting the movie “without a firm script,” so many of the scenes for this massive superhero blockbuster ended up being as improvised as a Christopher Guest comedy. According to Bridges, “many times … we would show up for the day’s work, not knowing what we were gonna shoot.” Gwenyth Paltrow supposedly had “a hard time keeping up,” and Bridges only became comfortable when he thought of it as “a $200 million student film.” Downey, on the other hand, thrived in this environment – and even riffed his most iconic line.
Meanwhile, Terrence Howard refused to give away plot details to the press, telling one reporter on the set: “I’m not going to open my mouth and end up having Iron Man 2 and 3 taken away from me.” Which is an unfortunate choice of words, considering that the Empire star was eventually booted from the franchise, either because of his “difficult behavior on the set” or perhaps because the producers asked him to take a pay cut – a claim Marvel disputed.
What’s truly bizarre about all of this is how this shambolic production became the blueprint for future Marvel projects. Since the success of Iron Man, Marvel scripts are always in a state of flux and constantly being rewritten throughout production – including Avengers: Endgame, which started filming before anyone knew what the actual goddamn “Endgame” was.
According to associate producer Jeremy Latcham, making Iron Man “by the seat of our pants” taught the team lessons “that underpinned the whole studio.” And, so far, that “reading an entire book the night before your school report is due” approach seems to be working out.
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Top Image: Marvel Studios