Iron Man - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[gerald]

Originally, Iron Man's archnemesis, the Mandarin, was going to be the film's villain, but Jon Favreau felt him to be too fantastic and dated, so he was re-written into a "working-behind-the-scenes" presence. Favreau cited "Star Wars" as a case: "I looked at the Mandarin more like how in 'Star Wars' you had the Emperor, but Darth Vader is the guy you want to see fight. Then you work your way to the time when lightning bolts are shooting out of the fingers, and all that stuff could happen. But you can't have what happened in Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) happen in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)."

[jamie]

Michael Bay has called this movie his favorite Marvel film.

[ethel]

All three sets of Iron Man's armor were designed by Adi Granov, a comic book artist from the "Iron Man" comic, and Phil Saunders. They were then constructed by Stan Winston Studios.

[russell]

(At around one hour and forty minutes) When Tony Stark tells Rhodey to "keep the skies clear" before going to confront Obadiah Stane, Rhodey looks to the silver Mark II suit before saying "next time, baby". Rhodey (played by Don Cheadle) donned this suit in Iron Man 2 (2010), becoming War Machine.

[lena]

(At around one hour and twenty-four minutes) When Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) watches Rhodey (Terrence Howard) on television, an expensive chess set is visible on the table in front of him. In the comics, Obadiah Stane was fond of playing chess, and also created a group called "The Chessmen" to attack Stark Industries.

[elmer]

(At around one hour and fifty-five minutes) The final scene, in which Tony reveals to the press that he is Iron Man, is a reference to the Avengers Disassembled mini-series. In the mini-series (part 1), which was written by Brian Michael Bendis, Stark, under the influence of Scarlet Witch, revealed himself to be the Secretary of Defense to the entire delegates of the U.N., with the exact line spoken in the film.

[liam]

Iron Man was famously created by Stan Lee, along with Larry Lieber, Don Heck and Jack Kirby in 1963's Tales of Suspense #39. When the Iron Man movie got off the ground with Fox in 1996, Stan Lee was the co-writer on the first draft of the script, along with Jeff Vintar. According to sources, the story would have had the super intelligent MODOK as the villain. The script was apparently pretty good, because of Tom Rothman (President of Production at Fox) later saying Lee's screenplay made him finally "get" the character of Iron Man. The problem is that they never ended up using Lee's script. In fact, the movie went through a lot of scripts, and Lee never even ended up in the credits. It's like the script never existed, and that's probably been a disappointment for Lee.

[nicholas]

There are various references in the film to the Mandarin, Iron Man's archnemesis: -The organization that kidnaps Stark is called "the Ten Rings", after the ten rings that comprise the Mandarin's arsenal (Jon Favreau has stated that The Ten Rings, in fact, works for The Mandarin). -Commandant Raza speaks of Genghis Khan and Asia. -Commandant Raza is seen occasionally fiddling with an ornate gold ring. -The rings are worn by Stark, Stane, Rhodes, and Raza (that is to say those in positions of power).

[jamie]

It took approximately seventeen years to get the film into development. Originally, Universal Pictures was to produce the film in April 1990. They later sold the rights to Twentieth Century Fox. Later, Fox sold the rights to New Line Cinema. Finally, Marvel Studios decided to handle their own creation.

[dustin]

Christine Everhart mentioned to Tony that he is called the "da Vinci of our time". The real Leonardo da Vinci was a military engineer in addition to being an artist and inventor. Among da Vinci's weapon designs were a gigantic crossbow, multi-barreled cannons, and an armored vehicle powered by hand-cranks.

[francisco]

According to Jon Favreau, when making this film, there was a lot of pressure for it to succeed. This was particularly due to Marvel using their characters as collateral when they received a five hundred twenty-five million dollar, seven year deal, called a non-recourse debt facility, allowing them to make original films based on their properties. Marvel wanted to have complete creative control over their characters, build a film library, and greater profit potential than the deals they've inked with other studios owning the film rights to their characters. Marvel also changed its name to Marvel Entertainment, Incorporated, to establish a Hollywood presence. If the film didn't succeed, Marvel would've lost the intellectual property rights to their library. However, the wager paid off, as Iron Man's box office success enabled Marvel to kick off an entire Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) consisting of interconnecting films and series.

[janice]

(At around one hour and twenty-five minutes) When Pepper discovers Tony removing the damaged Iron Man armor, Captain America's shield can be seen sitting on a workbench. This same scene was shown in many trailers, but the image of the shield was edited out. Iron Man 2 (2010) and Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) would later reveal that Howard Stark, Tony's father, was responsible for the creation of Captain America's shield, and the one in Tony's home is an early prototype.