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Friday
07Nov2008

Downey Talks 'Iron Man' Dust-Up, Says Nothing

Word has been rolling in for the past couple of weeks about the reconfigured Iron Man 2. Actually, I first raised my eyebrows when they dumped the writers of the first Iron Man completely to bring in Justin Theroux, who co-wrote Tropic Thunder. To me, that just seemed like an unnecessary change.

Of course, Marvel has taken a bit of a beating over Iron Man 2 already, and as one of our readers pointed out this summer, it almost seems like Marvel wasn't prepared for a sequel - they hired a new writer, they had a debate over money with director Jon Favreau - and that was all capped off in October with the sudden announcement that Jim "Rhodey" Rhodes would be played by Don Cheadle in subsequent movies, replacing Terrence Howard.

Again, it seemed unnecessary, although we heard last week that Howard was difficult and expensive, if you want to believe it.

Now, the only man who really matters in all this is speaking his mind. Or maybe he's reciting talking points. “I had nothing to do with that decision," Robert Downey Jr. told Splashpage. "I love Terrence [Howard] very very much. That’s all I’ll say because I haven’t talked to him yet.”

As for his new cohort, Downey says,“I’ve always admired Don [Cheadle]. It’s one of those situations where I still don’t quite know what happened or why. Here’s what happens too: things happen and you wind up commenting on them before you’ve actually talked to the people and it’s in poor taste.”

That doesn't sound like much of a comment, does it? But wait, there's more...if by "more" I mean "less":

“I think the important thing with the Iron Man franchise is to not do too much too soon and to make sure we don’t piss off the public that put us in the position we’re in. We’ve just got to keep rolling up our sleeves higher and further up the elbow. If we show up and we’re in the right head space and our heart’s in the right spot and we really think about the audience at every turn and we don’t try to stamp our hipness onto anything, it’s very interactive.”

Yeah. Exactly. Wait - what did he say?

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Reader Comments (5)

Maybe RDJ and all his hipness is saying that 10 years from now, there will be three really badass Iron Man Movies out there, all 20 times better than the first one, and we will have all forgotten about these growing pains (and Terrance Howard) by then.

Friday, November 7, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterWill

Terrance who? ;)

Friday, November 7, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterDaz

Clearly, Downey is showing us that a future in politics isn't out of the question for him.

Friday, November 7, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterAsana

I have to admire Robert Downey's diplomatic skills.

However there are a few things that are shining through. First, he obviously warns about moving too fast and messing things up on the way. Things that fall into this category if of course the studio arguing with the director over money, dumping the successful writer and chucking one of the supporting actors in mysterious circumstances.

As I said before, making good movies is difficult and a random, maverick approach rarely pays off in large projects.

Saturday, November 8, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterLengthy Johnson

if it aint broke dont fix it!!!! GO TERRANCE HOWARD!!!!

Sunday, November 9, 2008 | Unregistered Commentercapt. america

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