What's Up with Iron Man II? Just Ask Jon Favreau
By Emily Christianson, Hollywood.com Staff
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Monday, September 29, 2008
HW: How has Marvel's plan to integrate their universe in films changed your plan, going from a franchise to a mega-franchise?
JF: It's tough because it first starts off like, 'Hey, wouldn't it be fun if we stuck a Captain America shield in the background? Wouldn't it be fun if we have Sam Jackson play Nick Fury like in The Ultimate Avengers?' Its like, 'Let’s prove ourselves to our fans.' So you do that. Now, between the Captain America shield and Nick Fury and then the after the credit scene that in the eleventh hour became the final scene of The Hulk, that one was a big one for me. I was like, 'Wow, we're forming a team. We're going to that guy and you're forming a team.' That's clearly not the day after Iron Man ended. Where does it fit in the time continuum? I don't want to just ignore it or do what the comic books have done. I guess you could do what Marvel has said, 'It's an alternate universe.' They've gotten away with that one for a couple of decades, but how do you make all that work within that world because I think it is fun and I think that Hulk was successful in keeping a tone that did not seem inconsistent with our film and certainly with Robert being in there. But we definitely now have a lot of things [to consider]…Then there are conversations that I've been having with them about The Avengers too. Remember, with Avengers you're not just dealing with tech. You're dealing with inter-dimensional portals and all the shit that makes you jump the shark if you don't handle it right. So we were very restrained in how we used our superhero-ism in our movie and we did that by keeping it all tech based.
HW: Are you logistically concerned with having huge stars and huge characters that if this combination of universes happens that they'll have to share screen time and that all that business might get in the way of the storytelling?
JF: That's sort of the danger isn't it. Forget about creatively, but just from a perspective of finances, but somehow they make Ocean's Eleven. So there are clearly business models and I think that it has more to do if people are enthusiastic and feel like they're going to be in a movie that they'll be proud of. The truth is that most stars of that level would love to be in a movie where they're not everyday on the call sheet and they're not the only one carrying the burden for the press junket.