Louis Leterrier has revealed not only that Jon Favreau is currently writing Iron Man 2 with Robert Downey Jr., but that the sequel to the Spring blockbuster will feature a new character from the Avengers, after the brief appearance by Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in the post-credits sequence of Iron Man.
Additionally Leterrier is reported to have said that 2011 will definitely bring Jackson, Downey Jr., Hulk actor Ed Norton and two other 'A-list actors' - presumably whichever A-listers get cast as Thor and Captain America in their respective upcoming movies that Marvel is also producing - together for the Avengers movie.
DoG source 'Mr Miyagi' spoke with Leterrier - who had just come from a meeting with Iron Man director Jon Favreau - at the Marvel Night at the Grand Rex in Paris in early July.
Current expected release dates are Iron Man 2 in 2010, Thor is pencilled in for 2010, Avengers in 2011 while The First Avenger: Captain America is due in May 2011 too.
One of the biggest behind-the-scenes gossip stories still being talked about in Hollywood is Marvel's decision to dump Terrence Howard for Don Cheadle as Col. James Rhodes in Iron Man 2 (and beyond). Following the announcement, we ran a quote from Howard, who claimed that "it was the surprise of a lifetime." No on really knows the real story (or, at least, won't speak publicly about it), but Nicole Sperling from Entertainment Weekly has uncovered some interesting details and tries to explain exactly what happened. While I haven't lost any respect for Howard, I'm still not sure Cheadle will be able to fill in or do a better job than Howard, who seemed like the perfect choice for the role of Rhodey.
So the story begins way back during pre-production on Iron Man, where Howard was apparently the first to sign on to the film, making him (somehow) the highest paid actor - even above Robert Downey Jr. Sources later blame "Howard's difficult behavior on the set" and say that "Jon Favreau and his producers were ultimately unhappy with Howard's performance, and spent a lot of time cutting and reshooting his scenes." They must have done a great job, because he seemed like a perfect fit in the final cut. This less-than-satisfactory experience on the first film, which was an amalgamation of Howard being difficult and overly expensive, resulted in Favreau and the producers making a lot of changes for Iron Man 2.
Apparently Favreau and screenwriter Justin Theroux decided to minimize Rhodey's story in the sequel. Subsequently, Marvel tried to go back to Howard with a "drastically reduced offer," because of the smaller role and aforementioned experience on the first movie. It was such a drastic reduction, "estimated at somewhere between a 50 and 80 percent pay cut," that his agents obviously flipped out and questioned the offer. Given Marvel (and Hollywood in general) are frisky, penny-pinching bastards, they decided to go back to Don Cheadle and sign him on before it was too late. Which somewhat clarifies why it was a surprise to Howard - it seems like they didn't even finish negotiations before they signed on Cheadle.
I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon and say Howard is a greedy bastard, because I still really like the guy and I wasn't there personally observing all of this. I am just reporting the news from Entertainment Weekly, but will admit that it's a rather interesting story to hear. Now it's time to move on and hold our breath as we wait to see whether Cheadle will do a good job or not. I'm also curious to see how much of Rhodey's story is actually cut from the script; and whether they decided to add it back in once they knew Cheadle (who is at least as competent as Howard) would be taking over. I'm not alone in my desire to see War Machine take flight - let's hope Favreau and Theroux decided to keep him in there afterall.
Hollywood may want you to believe that the movie industry is a big family when promoting a movie, but actually it is but a big business. A stark example is reported by Slashfilm: actor Terrence Howard who played Jim Rhodes, Tony Stark’s military friend in the movie Iron Iron Man, is being replaced by Don Cheadle for Iron man 2. Marvel Studio is kicking Terrence Howard out of the loop to save money!
More information at: Iron man 2 Trailer
Well Marvel is maybe also preparing to give more weight to the character of Jim Rhodes, maybe Marvel is thinking about War Machine in Iron man 2. So Don Cheadle may be a better bet because he has indeed more experience than Terrence Howard: such experience would be welcome in case of a spin-off movie dedicated to War Machine.
