Iron Man 3 | Through the Shattered Lens

Iron Man 3 teaser trailer is now out and let the hype and speculation move into it’s second phase as the film still has a little under 6 months left before it’s release date.

Marvel Studios, whether one likes them or not in regards to how they treat the original creators of their comic book properties, have been hitting on all cylinders under the focused direction of it’s leader in Kevin Feige. Te Phase One of their plan for an all-ecompassing Marvel Cinematic Universe using Marvel Comics characters still under their control when it comes to film and tv productions culminated with one of the biggest films in history with this year’s Marvel’s The Avengers. We now have Phase Two to look forward to and the first film to start this next phase in the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be none other than the next film in the series which began Phase One: Iron Man 3.

The third film returns the same cast as before with the addition of Sir Ben Kingsley in the role of the Mandarin and Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall and James Badge Dale to round out the rest of the cast. Shane Black now takes over as director of the series with Jon Favreau coming back as executive producer and in the role of Happy Hogan.

The trailer makes mention about how the events of The Avengers has changed the world, but also Tony Stark’s own personal life and he’s finally admitted that being Iron Man and Stark has increased the amount of people who are genuinely out to kill him. The teaser focuses on the dramatic aspect of the film but still manages to put in some “sizzle reel” worthy action sequences with the bulk of it being the destruction of Tony’s cliffside home in Southern California.

I am an unashamed fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and while I will admit every film in it has had flaws in the end they’ve all been entertaining. With Shane Black in the director’s chair I actually think this film may improve on the first film, fix the problems of the second and raise the bar for the rest of the films that will comprise Phase Two of Marvel’s plan.

Iron Man 3 is set for a release date of May 3, 2013.

When Marvel Pictures and filmmaker Jon Favreau announced that he wouldn’t be doing Iron Man 3 there were some worries that no one would be up to the task to replace the man who brought the character of Iron Man to the big-screen. The first film was a fun, origin story that showed Iron Man was above being relegated to Tier 2 superhero status. The sequel wasn’t as well-planned and executed. There were rumblings behind the scenes that Favreau was none too happy with Marvel for rushing the sequel.

The split between filmmaker and studio has been amicable in public and Favreau will remain as producer of the third film. Once it was official that a new director would be needed the search began and the interwebs and it’s geek hordes went into rumor overdrive. The question everyone wanted to know now is will Marvel make the same mistake 20th Century Fox did when they replaced Bryan Singer for X-Men 3 with Brett Ratner or will they actually do their due diligence and find someone who understands the Iron Man franchise to make a third film work.

It looks like Marvel may have done their job during their search for, according to the entertainment news site Deadline, writer-directed Shane Black is now in negotiations with the studio to take over for Favreau and helm the third film. If the deal goes through then it couldn’t have happened to a better filmmaker and definitely puts the franchise in very capable hands.

Black made his directorial debut with the critically-acclaimed and popular comedy-mystery, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (which also happened to have had Robert Downey, Jr. in the lead), and he’s been one of the best writers of action films since the late 80’s when he penned the first two Lethal Weapon films.

Personally, I think this is an upgrade from Favreau. I thought Favreau was a good filmmaker who did a great job in making the first Iron Man film not get lost in the hype and hoopla that was The Dark Knight, but the second film also showed that the expectations the first film created for the sequel may have been too much for him to handle. Whether Marvel studio heads rushed him or not he didn’t stand up to the challenge.

With Shane Black the franchise now has a filmmaker who understands action films, but also how to make them fun and irreverent. While the Deadline article didn’t specify whether Black will be writing the script for the third film in addition to directing, I would find think Marvel would want to tap Black’s penchant for writing smart, funny action scripts to make sure Iron Man 3 gets back to the high-bar the first film had set. One thing that bodes well for all this is that Robert Downey, Jr. has worked with Black before so the two shouldn’t have to worry about getting comfortable with each other.

Iron Man 3 has no release date other than Marvel wanting it to be a 2013 Summer film. Until, then let’s hope Marvel doesn’t screw the negotiations up and lose Black.

Source: Deadline