Release Date: Summer, 2006 (wide)
Release Date Notes: (10/29/02) At one point, Marvel listed this film as being targeted for a summer, 2004 release, but New Line recently unveiled their likely 2004 slate, and didn't mention this film. 2005 might be possible though. (2/12/03) "Variety" confirms that New Line is aiming for this to be one of their highest-profile "tentpole" releases for 2005. (3/10/03) Marvel's latest financial statement indicates that the 2005 release is not a sure thing yet. Perhaps 2006? (3/15/04) Another year, and we have a firmer grasp of when we can expect this movie. Marvel is now aiming for November, 2005. (3/23/05) A year later, and the target is now sometime in 2006, probably the summer.
Distributor: New Line Cinema
Production Company: Angry Films (From Hell, Transformers), Marvel Entertainment
Cast: None announced yet.
Cast Notes: (9/9/01) Nicolas Cage and Tom Cruise have both expressed interest in the past in playing Tony Stark, the mustached playboy billionaire under the gold-and-red armor. My hunch is that the actor to actually sign on in 2002/2003 will be someone else completely. (2/20/03) IGN FilmForce reports that the current "dream choice" right now is Leonardo DiCaprio. As that article mentions, he does seem a fine choice as someone who could play both a character whose traits include that of a swinging billionaire playboy, a sullen alcoholic and a man with a health condition serious enough he has to wear a metallic chestplate. (2/3/04) Doing press in recent weeks for The Last Samurai, Tom Cruise has told a variety of media outlets that he is still interested in playing Tony Stark. The question now is whether the deal can be made to actually secure Cruise in the role.
Director: Not announced yet.
Screenwriter: Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (writing team of Shanghai Knights, Shanghai Noon; cowriters of Showtime)
Screenwriter Note: (2/12/03) Tim McCanlies (The Iron Giant, Secondhand Lions) had been working on this project in 2002, but he's since dropped out, with Gough and Millar starting over completely from scratch. (8/10/03) Miles Millar told SciFi.com recently that he and Gough expect to have the script done by sometime in September, 2003.
Based Upon: The long-running Marvel Comics series and character that first appeared in 1962 in Tales of Suspense #39.
Not Based Upon: There's another project in development, also called Iron Man, a biopic at Universal about Olympic athlete and WWII hero Lou Zamperini. Curiously enough, Nicolas Cage has also been mentioned as interested in that role as well.
Villain Note: (10/1/02) At some point before Tim McCanlies came aboard, there was a script where the villain was M.O.D.O.K., best known for being a guy with a very big head, in a floating chair. He's no longer planned to be in the film. (2/12/03) With Gough and Millar starting over from scratch, there's no word now about what villain might be used... M.O.D.O.K. is probably as much in the running again as anyone else. One comic fan I talked to recently said he thought Jack Black would make a great M.O.D.O.K., with his head enlarged by CGI to be 12-foot-tall like it is in the comics.
Origin Note:
9/09/01 - It appears the origin story is being changed quite a bit from the original 1962 version, which had Tony Stark being forced to create weaponry for the Chinese military (within the context of Vietnam), inspiring him to secretly build a suit of armor so he could free himself from their control and stop them. That origin also included a requirement that Stark wear an iron chestplate at all times due to a bullet near his heart that the armor protected him from; this was included in an early script by Jeff Vintar, but it's not known if it's still there.
Premise: (9/9/01) When another military arms industrialist, Justin Hammer, seeks to steal his technologically amazing inventions for evil purposes, genius and alcoholic playboy Tony Stark ends up nearly dying, saved at the last moment by a suit of weaponry. Newly equipped to face Hammer on his own terms, Stark uses the armor as "Iron Man" to stop him from misusing his inventions. (2/12/03) With new screenwriters signing on, it's quite possible that this Justin Hammer-centric storyline is being abandoned.
Armor Note:
9/09/01 - Due to the constraints of not covering up the lead actor's face for the majority of the film, it's very likely that the Iron Man suits in this movie will vary at least as to how much they reveal his face (which in the comics was completely covered by a plate). (5/6/02) Or maybe not. This weekend's smash opening of Spider-Man showed that fans don't seem to care so much if the hero's face is covered up for extended periods. Here's hoping this film will keep to the comic roots, with an armor that looks like the comics, with an armor that covers the face (they can always show close-ups within the thing).
Filming: (2/12/03) There is currently no word about when production is likely to start, but with a 2005 release date and a fairly ambitious CGI postproduction schedule likely, the latest it will probably start filming is probably mid-2004. (3/15/04) Indeed. New Line Cinema is currently aiming to start production in the summer of 2004.
Genre: Action, Based on a Book, Eye Candy, Science Fiction, Superhero
Dream Casting Article: IGN FilmForce
Script Reviews: AICN (a review of the first McCanlies draft); AICN (second McCanlies; the biggest news from this is that Nick Fury has been removed, making room for Rhodey Rhodes' to be more prominent) (note: now that McCanlies is off of the project completely, and the new screenwriters are starting over from scratch, these reviews are sort of academic... but they're still interesting for providing a glimpse of what might have been)
Rumor Controls: Comics2Film, Iron Man Hype
Official Comic Character Site: Marvel Comics
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Recent Updates to This Page:
3/23/05 - Release Date Notes, Release Date
3/15/04 - Filming
2/03/04 - Cast Notes
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2/12/03 - With their latest effort sitting at the #2 spot on the box office chart this week, the screenwriting team of Alfred Gough and Miles Millar have signed on with Marvel and New Line Cinema to start work on the 'Iron Man' script from scratch, aiming for a 2005 release. This isn't their first comic book project, as they had been working on The Amazing Spider-Man for a while (before being replaced by Michael Chabon, who wrote the novel, "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay"), and they are credited as being the "creators" of the hit 'Superman'-centric TV show, "Smallville". The article doesn't mention which direction they're going to take, but I'm hoping it's going to be one that lends itself towards having a suit of gold-and-red more like the comic book versions, and not just a tech-heavy "Mission: Impossible" spy movie clone as some reports have suggested.
5/06/02 - The amazing success of Spider-Man this weekend got me thinking... if that movie could have the biggest opening ever with a hero whose entire face is covered, why can't Iron Man get away with the same thing? I just don't like this idea of an Iron Man movie where he doesn't wear armor that bears some similarity (including a mask) to the comic books. Spider-Man certainly showed you can be truthful to a comic book design, and still be a hit.
4/26/02 - IGN FilmForce has confirmed that Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) no longer has any involvement with this project. Considering his full plate, this may be good news, if another director can be found in time for 2004.
1/13/02 - The results of a recent survey are in, and this project came in as a strong #3 of 6, with 14%, of superhero projects visitors would like to see guaranteed a greenlight in time for a release sometime in 2003. I've often wondered how well-known Iron Man was to non-comic-fans (whom most did vote along with fans), but I guess I tend to forget that there was an animated show a while back (splitting time with Fantastic Four, the #2 vote), which might have helped raise its profile a teensy bit.
9/14/01 - Responding to studio notes, Tim McCanlies has turned in a second draft, which removes Nick Fury (and presumably S.H.I.E.L.D.), beefing up the African-American supporting character of James "Rhodey" Rhodes (who in the comics eventually took on the armored role of War Machine). You can find out more in the AICN review.
9/09/01 - Iron Man has a bit of a strange place in Marvel history and fandom. While he's always been considered one of their "big guns", and certainly does have a fanbase (many fan sites, for example, and sales that are good enough that his book has never been cancelled), Iron Man has never quite crossed over to being a character that the wider comic book audience adores. I think that's mostly because there has never been a "must read" Iron Man story that brought in new readers. Oh sure, there were the "Armor Wars", and the Dr. Doom/Morgana epic in #149-150 was great, but it pales in comparison to the Frank Miller Daredevil run, the Byrne years on Fantastic Four, and more classic Spider-Man stories than I can possibly list here.
So, I have to be honest that I've never been a regular reader of "Ol' Shellhead" other than a few issues here and there that looked interesting. Of course, I also think I (and many other Gen X-ers) sort of missed out on Iron Man's height, which was probably the late issues of Tales of Suspense and the early issues of Iron Man itself. Marvel is promising to reprint these soon in their "Essential" line, but for many readers, they were always lost to time, too expensive to leap into as a first-time reader (these issues were reprinted in the 1970's in various forms but I never saw them).
In a way, Iron Man suffers a bit by being too much of a Batman clone. Both are playboy industrialist geniuses with dark personalities whose alter-ego's are plays on the concept of a "knight" (one is a "dark knight"; the other is a "knight in shining armor"), using an array of amazing technological inventions. Marvel has always tried to distinguish Iron Man by accentuating Tony Stark's alcoholism, and by centering his adventures around his concerns for Stark Industries (by any of its various names), but the core similarity to Batman, I think, prevents it from appealing to more fans. For me, Iron Man is also just too darn powerful. Oh sure, we know he's emotionally fragile, but he's also packing enough firepower to demolish a small country. More often than not, extremely powerful characters are harder to make sympathetic to readers (Superman is an exception). Also, I think Tony Stark, in general, is not a loved character; there's something about the way he's drawn that's always turned me off; that creepy black mustache. Having said all that, I think this also means that Iron Man is a bit of a blank slate for the basis of a movie. Without a rabid community of fans comparable to that of Spider-Man and X-Men, they can experiment a bit. The current storyline, using Justin Hammer, Stark's longtime technological foe (since Obadiah Stane died), seems to be enough of a wink to fans, without using one of the more colorful villains that might seem too "comic-ish" on the big screen (like say, the 10 rings of the Mandarin).
Page Created: 9/9/01
Iron Man (2006)
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