After the confirmation that Shane Black is officially re-teaming with his Kiss Kiss Bang Bang star Robert Downey Jr. for Iron Man 3, details on the third installment of Marvel’s wildly lucrative franchise went cold for a bit. Now, AICN brings us more news on the project.
Not only is Black directing, he’s also writing the script. This isn’t terribly shocking news, given that the Lethal Weapon and Last Action Hero screenwriter is one of the more celebrated screenwriters of the past twenty years. What is interesting is the reported approach to the new film’s script. Krullboy from Ain’t It Cool News attended a panel which included Black at the Omaha Film Festival:
The studio was not happy with the direction Iron Man 2 took. Iron Man 3 will not be another “two men in iron suits fighting each other” film. Instead, it will be more like a Tom Clancy-thriller, with Iron Man fighting real world villains.
I’m not sure I completely buy that Marvel was displeased with Iron Man 2 – it was a flood of robot fights, sure, but it had wit and style and I enjoyed it. Marvel’s hiring of Black signals a move in the similar direction as their rival DC: adding a more auteur-ish style to the mix. Given the success of DC/Warner’s trusting Christopher Nolan‘s supervision of the Batman franchise – not to mention his producing duties on Zack Snyder‘s Superman: Man of Steel (Snyder himself is kind of a hyper-auteur – he may not be Jean-Luc Godard, but he makes his movies his way, that’s for damned sure), Marvel seems intent on duplicating that model.
Which may or may not be for the best. Part of the charm of the Marvel films – at lease the ones we’ve seen so far – is how un-seriously they take themselves. I think we’ll have enough dark, edgy, brooding superheroes cluttering the multiplexes soon enough.
The notion of Iron Man battling real-life villains – like the Ten Rings terrorist cell of the first film – is welcome, but it only begs the question of who, in the end, is strong enough to do battle with Tony Stark in his Iron Man get-up? The answer is invariably this: another guy in a another power-suit. The answer could be to strip Stark of the suit altogether and have him in the final showdown alone and unarmed. Would he have his Avenger buddies as back-up? Not according to the AICN report – they’re only having cross-overs up to The Avengers, then returning to self-contained stories.
Iron Man 3 will hit theaters summer 2013.
What do you think about Shane Black writing and helming the next Iron Man? Do you think it’s a good fit?