April 30, 2025

Iron Man (2008) - Forging the MCU: How Iron Man Reinvented Robert Downey Jr, Marvel, and Cinema

Episode Summary:
Aaron and Brash dive into the 2008 classic Iron Man, exploring how Robert Downey Jr.’s personal comeback paralleled Tony Stark’s transformation, and how Marvel Studios’ bold gamble on a troubled actor reshaped modern cinema. From the film’s ground-breaking HUD design to its real-world military collaboration, we unpack the lessons Iron Man taught us about reinvention, risk, and fandom.

Topics:

Origin story of the MCU and Marvel’s $525 million collateral risk
Casting Robert Downey Jr. and parallels with Tony Stark
Jon Favreau’s “likable asshole” vision and on-set improvisation
Innovative heads-up display inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey and the iPod
U.S. Air Force partnership for authentic military portrayal
Community hot takes from Threads and Reddit
Legacy of the post-credits scene and franchise building

Key Takeaways:

Reinvention through adversity: RDJ, Tony Stark, and Marvel all bounced back stronger after near-disasters.
Calculated risk pays off: Marvel bet its character rights on one film and one actor—and won.
Grounded spectacle: Jon Favreau balanced larger-than-life action with real-world details for emotional impact.
Tech meets cinema: The suit’s HUD married Apple’s minimalist interface with cinematic flair.

Quotes:

“Betting on Robert Downey Jr. was the riskiest decision Marvel ever made—and it changed everything.”
“They wanted Tony Stark to feel real, like a flawed genius who fights his demons”
“They built the suit’s HUD after studying the iPod’s clean interface and Kubrick’s 2001 visuals to ground the tech in reality.”
“Collaborating with the U.S. Air Force gave them the authenticity audiences didn’t know they needed.”

Call to Action:
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Links & Resources:

Visit our website for show notes, transcripts, and bonus content: fandomportalspodcast.com
All news sources discussed during our podcast are available at FandomPortalsPodcast.com

Apple Podcast Tags:
Marvel, Iron Man, MCU, Robert Downey Jr, Tony Stark, Jon Favreau, Marvel Studios, Superheroes, Film Podcast, Geek Freaks Network, Fandom Portals Podcast, Movie Analysis, Comic Book Movies, Pop Culture, Behind the Scenes

Instagram: instagram.com/fandomportals/?locale=en
Threads: threads.net/@fandomportals
Email: fandomportals@gmail.com
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/fandomportals

00:00 - From Rehab to Superhero: Casting Downey

15:54 - Introduction to Marvel's Risky Venture

36:15 - Iron Man Origins and Production Challenges

55:31 - The Legacy Begins: Redefining Superhero Cinema

56:05 - Marvel's Bold Gamble with Studio and Star

01:14:05 - Behind the Scenes: Script Improv and Challenges

WEBVTT

00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:13.522
that the reason he advocated for Downey was because that the best and worst moments of Robert's life have been on display in the public eye and he had to find an inner balance to overcome obstacles that went far beyond his career.

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And he said that's literally Tony Stark.

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Hello everybody and welcome to the Fandom Portals podcast, the podcast that explores how fandoms can help us learn and grow.

00:00:35.750 --> 00:00:38.860
I'm Aaron and, as always, I'm here with my co-host, brash Brash.

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What's going on with you today?

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How are you?

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Why aren't you wearing the pyjamas I bought you?

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That's an Iron man line.

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It sure is.

00:00:44.670 --> 00:00:53.429
Yeah, buddy, that's a good one, and the reason you said it is because we're doing Iron man from 2008, the very first movie in the MCU.

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We're ending our Marvel month with the way that the MCU all started.

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It's been a big month for us Marvel-wise.

00:01:01.066 --> 00:01:02.149
How do you think it's gone so far?

00:01:02.390 --> 00:01:03.271
Good, a lot of Marvel.

00:01:03.271 --> 00:01:07.176
I've even watched a bunch of other Marvel stuff because we're just watching Marvel.

00:01:07.176 --> 00:01:18.028
So it's been a lot and I'm glad or, after Thunderbolts, I suppose I'm going to be glad to maybe have a little bit of a break from Marvel, with also Daredevil wrapping up as well.

00:01:18.939 --> 00:01:19.522
Yeah, same as me.

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I think it'll be a good palate cleanser after Thunderbolts and then we'll have a bit of a break before, obviously, fantastic Four comes out, which we're all very, very keen for.

00:01:28.221 --> 00:01:35.606
But, guys, before we get into what we're going to be learning about in this podcast this week, about Iron man from 2008, we're going to do our gratitudes.

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I've had a pretty good week, so it was very tricky for me to find a gratitude, because I'm grateful for lots of the things that I do have.

00:01:43.144 --> 00:01:56.825
But I am grateful this week for snacks, because watching all these Marvel movies with some good snacks, especially around Easter time, if people celebrate Easter, there is no shortage at the moment of snacks, and that's also like first world problems, I guess.

00:01:56.825 --> 00:02:06.853
But chocolate eggs, man, really great to eat on the couch in front of a Marvel movie watching Iron man, save the world, and you're just stuffing your face with chocolate and getting larger and larger by the second.

00:02:06.853 --> 00:02:09.447
But comfort food, man, that's what I'm grateful for.

00:02:09.447 --> 00:02:09.929
What about you?

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I'm grateful for good graphics.

00:02:13.145 --> 00:02:14.971
Yeah, we were talking about this before.

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Give me more.

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Tell me why.

00:02:16.780 --> 00:02:26.042
Well, I love good storytelling and I love video games and I love when the two are together and when it pairs with good graphics, it just makes it like it's.

00:02:26.804 --> 00:02:45.039
It's like a cinematic movie that you're involved with yeah, it increases the immersion because I currently playing um clear, obscure exhibition 33 and it's fantastic yeah, I walked in to do the podcast today and the music was awesome in the soundtrack, but then also I looked at the screen.

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I was like, holy crap, is this a game?

00:02:46.522 --> 00:02:50.271
Ps5 man, it's just next generation of graphics.

00:02:50.292 --> 00:02:55.088
It's so good oh yeah, it's absolutely fantastic and I love this game so much so far.

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It's it's like a blend of, like your final fantasies and your dark souls.

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It's just right up my alley.

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Quite cheap as well.

00:03:01.799 --> 00:03:02.420
We're talking about too.

00:03:02.420 --> 00:03:05.849
Yeah, yeah, actually yeah for a for a brand new game and for how good it is.

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Yes, it's cheap lots of opportunities for RPG character building too.

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We looked at also so if you're into that kind of thing, guys, our D&D sort of, our D&D love sort of took over.

00:03:16.406 --> 00:03:20.623
We were like going through all the skill trees yeah, and all the abilities and things, oh man.

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But yes, we digress, we digress.

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Anyway, yes, this week we are doing Iron man from 2008.

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It is the catalyst for the MCU that started it all, and we thought what better way to end our Marvel month than to finish it with Robert Downey Jr and Jon Favreau?

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So this is a movie about a man who's held captive in an Afghan cave and he's a billionaire, an engineer, and his name is Tony Stark, and he creates a billionaire, an engineer and his name is Tony Stark, and he creates a unique weaponized suit of armor to fight evil.

00:03:46.084 --> 00:03:52.087
But before that, he made weapons and distributed them across the world and thought he was doing a good job.

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But apparently he was doing such a good job that the other side had his weapons as well.

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So great for business bad for morality?

00:04:01.272 --> 00:04:03.235
Leveling the playing field, I guess.

00:04:03.275 --> 00:04:07.276
Well, yes, and, yeah, that's how the movie sort of starts out.

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But in this episode of the podcast you are going to learn about how Tony Stark and Robert Downey Jr proved it's never too late for a comeback and why their parallel journeys made the character and the MCU unforgettable.

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We're also going to learn about the massive gamble that Marvel Studios took on Iron man they risked everything on a troubled actor and a not-so-sure thing of a story and how this bold move didn't just save their careers, it rewrote the rules of modern cinema forever.

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Lots of learnings today.

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As we said, this is directed by Jon Favreau, it was written by Mike Fergus Hawk Ostby and obviously created by Stan Lee, the legend himself, who does have a cameo in this movie.

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Mm-hmm.

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He does he does, and starring Rash, robert Downey Jr, jeff Bridges, terrence Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow.

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Now can you tell me what all four of those actors have in common?

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What all four have in common, mm?

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Besides appearing in an Iron man movie, the first hero movie?

00:05:07.382 --> 00:05:12.288
I suppose I think so as well, but no, I was thinking more along the lines of every single one of those four actors.

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The four top-billed actors are all Oscar-nominated or Oscar winners.

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Huh, so we had Jeff Bridges, who was obviously a multi-Oscar-nominated actor, for the Contender and Starman in 2001 and 1985, respectively.

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And then we had Terrence Howard, who was the first cast and also the highest paid actor on this movie, and he was coming in hot from Crash in 2004 and Hustle and Flow, which he was actually Oscar nominated for as well.

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Gwyneth Paltrow was the only one of this cast who had actually won an Oscar for Best Leading Actress in Shakespeare in Love, nominated for Chaplin in 1992.

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And, funnily enough, he got a really meagre salary for this role.

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Do you know how much he got?

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Was it only like in my mind, it says $600,000.

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Very close.

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It's $500,000.

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He got $500,000, but there was also some back-end deals that he was able to include in his remuneration as well, you might say, and basically that was Marvel Studios insurance policy for him.

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So if he stayed on the project and he did a good job, he'd get extra awards, because he also had a very tumultuous past, which we'll get into in the podcast today as well.

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Budget of $140 million, grossed $585 million worldwide.

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So we talked last week about how a budget might inflate due to word of mouth, and this one definitely did so.

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It got $98 million in its opening weekend and then from there, through word of mouth and how good this movie was everybody was talking about talking about it skyrocketed to 585 million dollars and basically reignited marvel studios.

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That's the movie that we're looking at today and we're going to get into some of our hot takes.

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This is where we discuss our first thoughts on the media and unpack the boldest opinions, from what surprises us to what split the room.

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We'll also highlight your hot takes from Threads, instagram and Reddit's community.

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So if you want to get involved, make sure you go and check out the show notes below and you can do that there as well.

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Okay, brash, which first see Iron man.

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Actually, I would have seen it in the theaters, but it would have been in Charlottesville.

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It's either that or I was waiting for it to come out on DVD Because, to be honest, at the time I didn't have high hopes.

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Yeah, nobody had faith in the movie.

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Hey, I think I still went and saw the movies and I was like, oh, this is actually pretty good.

00:07:33.452 --> 00:07:47.069
Yeah, I don't think I really had high hopes for it, especially coming off of Hulk, yes, which came out not too long previously, but, but changed my view on it after watching it.

00:07:47.069 --> 00:07:48.834
But yeah, no.

00:07:48.834 --> 00:07:51.870
So I think I did see it in the cinema but, honestly, it was too long ago.

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I can't really remember when.

00:07:53.961 --> 00:08:13.911
Well, that was pretty much the same thing for a lot of people, because I think Iron man was definitely a B-list character is what it's been fondly called before and not many people knew who Iron man was, to the point where Marvel Studios actually released three little animated clips publicly as a marketing campaign to tell everybody that Iron man wasn't just a robot, it was a guy inside a suit, named Tony Stark as well.

00:08:13.911 --> 00:08:18.548
So it educated the public as they were getting prepared for the movie.

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Myself, in 2008, I used to work at an animal shelter, so I used to work really early hours.

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And in 2009, when I actually had the DVDs, I came home after a shift, watched Iron man and the Dark Knight in the same afternoon.

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It was literally like the best afternoon of my life.

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So it was funny to me to actually remember that and think that these two movies, the Dark Knight and or you know, yeah, the Dark Knight and Iron man came out in the same year.

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That's just insane to me to think about how good that year of cinema was.

00:08:49.410 --> 00:08:56.428
But I think for me I knew Iron man from the cartoon, but other than that, absolutely no idea.

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But he was one of the few characters that Marvel still had the rights of when they were going to make this movie and as a result of that, you know they were able to use him as their springboard.

00:09:08.691 --> 00:09:11.523
But let's look at what our Reddit and threads have to say.

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All right, so if you're a person that wants to contribute to our Reddit and threads, you can do so in the show notes below.

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The links are all there, because every single time we do a movie, we put up a post that says what did this movie teach you?

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And I put up a picture of the iron man poster all the way back in 2008, and we have on our threads that nicholas timothy brown lee says that they learned even the most loyal co-workers can betray you.

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Good lesson to learn.

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Red sabbath 13 learned that the military industrial complex can be controlled by a capitalist after he has a near-death experience.

00:09:44.390 --> 00:09:57.890
New factory classics says you can't assume your ai assistant won't one day be its own sentient android that will fall in love with you, a witch, and have a ship of athesius moment.

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So treat it well when you are building your combat armor, powered by your own heart reactor.

00:10:03.508 --> 00:10:06.640
That is insightful, and I also tell you that you know.

00:10:06.640 --> 00:10:09.005
Um, what is it?

00:10:09.005 --> 00:10:10.448
Something is 2020, what do they say?

00:10:10.830 --> 00:10:20.458
uh, hindsight, hindsight, that's right, it's 2020, exactly um dn vaughn 2.0 said that the mcu hates the no kill rule.

00:10:20.458 --> 00:10:21.822
And I said what's the no kill rule?

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Because I didn't know what the no kill rule was.

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And he said it's a rule where superheroes don't kill yeah people or things, and I said, well, that must have been an old rule, because a lot of them do that now and it's like a rarity that they don't.

00:10:32.692 --> 00:10:35.788
Yeah, I think that was crazy because, yeah, I can think of multiple scenes.

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The one in my head immediately comes when, uh, iron man goes back to the city that yensen's from or the village that Jensen's from, and he just goes and blows up all the terrorists there.

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All movies are still getting like superhero movies, getting bold like that, like even man of Steel, yeah, yeah, that shocked me because he's meant to be like the golden boy.

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He's the boys guy, he's Baby.

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Blue.

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I know, see, that's the one that I think divided the community on the no-kill rule, because everyone's just like we love Henry Cavill but we don't love that.

00:11:07.173 --> 00:11:10.000
Yeah, I was shocked.

00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:15.253
And then Trey Fisher 101 says that you should never trust Jeff Bridges.

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Old Obadiah Stane, he looks good.

00:11:19.672 --> 00:11:20.716
He's a bald man.

00:11:20.716 --> 00:11:21.279
He does look good.

00:11:21.279 --> 00:11:33.212
That took like 10 years off his life and I saw an interview with him and he was talking about how he was thinking about doing it and you know, the people in hair and makeup were like shaving his head down shorter and shorter and shorter in increments.

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So he was not fully sold on the bald head.

00:11:35.567 --> 00:11:40.062
But then it got to his hair being about an inch long and he was like just get rid of it all and he liked it.

00:11:40.062 --> 00:11:44.389
He said he'd always wanted to do it and this was the first time that he was able to try and I think the beard makes it too.

00:11:44.410 --> 00:11:52.524
It's like a very strong masculine sort of presence with that yeah, like a bald person without a beard sort of just looks weird.

00:11:52.524 --> 00:12:02.823
Yeah, it looks like Bruce Willis yeah or as my grandma used to say Bruce Willis is probably like one of the only people I can that pulls it off like really well, like Vin Diesel.

00:12:02.823 --> 00:12:04.966
Even Vin Diesel, yeah, he's like.

00:12:04.966 --> 00:12:06.107
Have you seen with hair, though?

00:12:06.107 --> 00:12:07.570
Oh bro, he looks better.

00:12:07.590 --> 00:12:10.253
He obviously looks better without hair, and Dwayne Johnson as well.

00:12:10.253 --> 00:12:12.154
Man yeah, all those men look better bald.

00:12:12.154 --> 00:12:17.500
But yeah, with Vin Diesel, my nan used to say that he looks like a boiled egg with eyebrows.

00:12:17.500 --> 00:12:25.188
Oh yeah, sorry, vin Diesel, if you're listening, my name wasn't a fan or isn't a fan.

00:12:26.261 --> 00:12:28.570
No, I suppose they all look pretty good.

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All right, let's jump over to our Reddit page.

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So we have UnluckyBird2601 that says that the character of Iron man is awesome and that Robert Downey Jr was born to play the role.

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And then we had Terry496 that said Downey definitely killed it.

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I think that in hindsight that is definitely the case.

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Everybody looks at Robert Downey Jr as the catalyst for a lot of things in the MCU At the time.

00:12:56.374 --> 00:12:59.344
We'll go into a little bit about Robert Downey Jr later in the podcast as well.

00:12:59.725 --> 00:13:05.328
But it was also pretty well received, yeah, even due to his tumultuous past.

00:13:05.328 --> 00:13:10.985
But I think that everybody knew that his struggles mirrored Tony Stark's and that was a big draw factor as well.

00:13:10.985 --> 00:13:15.662
But I would also like to say that when people say that he was born to play the role, I do agree.

00:13:15.662 --> 00:13:30.360
But I think that also kind of discredits a lot of the hard work that he did to actually perform the role, embody the character, and he's gone on to say lots of times in lots of behind the scenes stuff that it was definitely a creative and collaborative process to bring that character to life so many times.

00:13:30.360 --> 00:13:31.764
So yeah, I definitely agree.

00:13:32.942 --> 00:13:34.586
He was the perfect casting choice for that role.

00:13:35.307 --> 00:13:35.850
I think so too.

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All right, and then we had Gubba Toriel that said the DC universe would no longer rule the superhero genre of movies.

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So that's what they learned from Iron man.

00:13:48.767 --> 00:13:53.428
And I think that's kind of true, because before that they obviously had the Tim Burton run of Batman movies.

00:13:53.428 --> 00:14:08.513
They had the Superman movies that came out in the 70s, 80s and 90s, for DC and Marvel was kind of starting to get its legs in terms of the Spider-Man movies that came out with Tobey Maguire and also the X-Men movies that were directed by Bryan Singer.

00:14:08.513 --> 00:14:10.005
So they were starting to get a little bit of traction.

00:14:10.005 --> 00:14:17.589
But the funny thing about those movies was they actually weren't putting any money into Marvel Studios' pockets because they'd sold the rights to the characters to.

00:14:17.629 --> 00:14:19.173
Sony and 20th Century Fox.

00:14:19.173 --> 00:14:22.004
So yeah, I definitely agree.

00:14:22.004 --> 00:14:32.384
I think that this really set the sale for Marvel in terms of being able to make money for some of their own characters again, but then also, uh, kind of flatlined DC for a little while.

00:14:32.625 --> 00:14:38.192
Yeah, or even still now, like they've had some DC, has had some sparks of genius.

00:14:38.472 --> 00:14:42.260
Yeah, I think the outlier in that is definitely the Nolan trilogy of Batman that we can just sort of.

00:14:42.260 --> 00:14:45.028
There is definitely that for DC going on yeah the.

00:14:45.028 --> 00:14:46.312
Nolan trilogy of Batman that we can just sort of.

00:14:46.312 --> 00:14:49.000
There is definitely that for DC going on, yeah, but I do agree.

00:14:49.360 --> 00:15:10.879
I think that there's not so much spark in the DC as there used to be, because, like it's like for me watching DC movies now, it's sort of like I watch it and you know when there's like something you're forgetting, it's just not to be a tongue or just that sensation, just like you've almost like or a thought that you've almost got, but you can't quite get it.

00:15:10.804 --> 00:15:11.783
That's like how I feel when I watch dc.

00:15:11.708 --> 00:15:12.448
That's a really good way to put it, man, because it's almost there.

00:15:12.448 --> 00:15:12.864
It's almost there.

00:15:12.864 --> 00:15:14.557
It's got everything that you got you like it's just not, it's just missing something.

00:15:14.557 --> 00:15:23.849
Yeah, it's just missing something, and that's how I feel about pretty much every single dc movie that's coming out like it's just missing that something yeah, I wonder what uh gun's influence is going to be.

00:15:23.869 --> 00:15:25.772
It'll be interesting to watch that and comment on it later on.

00:15:25.772 --> 00:15:29.445
But we also have this comment actually blew me away from Reddit.

00:15:29.445 --> 00:15:34.005
It said you should love more, as in that's the username of the person you should love more.

00:15:34.005 --> 00:15:54.128
Says that my past addiction had no say in my future, and I think that was really poignant and also I thank you for sharing, because that's literally the journey that Robert Downey Jr goes on and that also Tony Stark goes on in this movie, and that one hit me so much so that we actually kind of are going to touch on a lot in our episode today.

00:15:54.128 --> 00:15:59.028
So that was our community A lot of people praising Iron man.

00:15:59.660 --> 00:16:00.785
Actually, I will read out this one.

00:16:00.785 --> 00:16:04.205
There's always one.

00:16:04.205 --> 00:16:10.332
So there was some people that weren't throwing ultimate praise towards Iron man on our Reddits.

00:16:10.332 --> 00:16:13.229
It says only use for questions, that's his name.

00:16:13.229 --> 00:16:29.303
Says that people will praise the shit out of something that is undeserving if people spread the word enough, and I kind of disagree with that because I mean I kind of agree, but in this instance, in instance that's a good point, because I do also.

00:16:29.403 --> 00:16:31.509
I do agree that people can jump on hype trains a lot.

00:16:31.509 --> 00:16:33.928
That's definitely a fact of the movie going industry.

00:16:33.928 --> 00:16:46.653
But I don't think it applies to iron man, because one mathematically the box office numbers it made 98 million in its first weekend and then ended up making 585, like that's word of mouth and people wanting to come and rewatch in the movie cinemas.

00:16:46.653 --> 00:16:54.567
But then also just watching the movie myself and looking at it and thinking that not only is it a movie that teaches you lots of things, it's entertaining.

00:16:54.567 --> 00:16:55.650
It was groundbreaking.

00:16:55.650 --> 00:17:08.307
This is a movie that like solidified itself as something new and different and it defeated the odds against people that really weren't expecting anything from it, from the people that were making it and the people that were involved.

00:17:08.307 --> 00:17:11.523
So I definitely think that it is being praised for good reason.

00:17:11.523 --> 00:17:13.428
So only used for questions.

00:17:13.428 --> 00:17:17.344
I think that in this case, in iron man's case, not so true.

00:17:17.344 --> 00:17:24.842
But that person did go on to say that, um, they think that iron man three outclasses iron man one, and I'm not sure if I agree with that either.

00:17:25.461 --> 00:17:33.248
Yeah, and I think we've already spoken about this, and you disagree with me, but I fucking hated both Iron man 2 and Iron man 3.

00:17:33.248 --> 00:17:37.090
Yeah, yeah, to me those were just misses.

00:17:37.090 --> 00:17:40.953
Yeah, and it's all because of the bad guys.

00:17:40.953 --> 00:17:50.048
Up until Thanos came along, marvel had a bad, and it wasn't so much the casting actors Thanos I think Loki in Avengers was good.

00:17:50.809 --> 00:17:51.632
That came before Thanos.

00:17:51.912 --> 00:17:56.123
Oh yeah, sorry, Loki sort of Thanos, because Thanos was also in that movie, but Loki's an anti-hero.

00:17:56.123 --> 00:18:01.054
Yeah, it was like like Thor, like Thor 2, like with the dark elf.

00:18:02.204 --> 00:18:03.790
They definitely had a big miss.

00:18:03.790 --> 00:18:07.740
In terms of villains, I think the best one out of phase one would be Red Skull.

00:18:07.740 --> 00:18:08.744
I love it.

00:18:08.744 --> 00:18:11.694
He was a good villain in the first phase of the MCU.

00:18:11.694 --> 00:18:16.471
Wish he had played a bit bigger role, yeah, or even continued on after the fact.

00:18:16.491 --> 00:18:20.211
Yeah, Instead, he just dies and becomes a ghost on fucking some planet.

00:18:20.211 --> 00:18:24.613
Yeah, Guarding the um dies and becomes a ghost on fucking some planet.

00:18:24.613 --> 00:18:30.959
Yeah, guarding the soul stone, but yeah, like Whiplash in the second one, as I said earlier, I enjoy Whiplash.

00:18:30.999 --> 00:18:32.605
I'll go on the record to say I enjoy Whiplash.

00:18:32.605 --> 00:18:35.472
I love Whiplash, the character and you also like.

00:18:35.512 --> 00:18:36.094
Mickey Rourke I love.

00:18:36.134 --> 00:18:37.196
Mickey Rourke, the actor.

00:18:37.196 --> 00:18:41.375
Never the two shall they meat the writing like whiplash.

00:18:41.415 --> 00:18:41.998
He's meant to like.

00:18:41.998 --> 00:18:48.669
He literally names whiplash like something that's like like I don't know, it's a play on words because he's whips, but like he's also meant to be.

00:18:48.669 --> 00:18:55.770
Like like and Jake jumping around swinging off shit with his whips and like just movement, mickey Rourke.

00:18:55.770 --> 00:18:57.488
Well, I picture movement.

00:18:57.488 --> 00:19:01.165
Mickey Rourke is not in my picture yeah, he was a boxer man.

00:19:01.205 --> 00:19:03.833
Mickey Rourke was a boxer, yeah, he was a boxer.

00:19:03.853 --> 00:19:08.553
But also with boxing, yeah, you gotta move your feet, but it's in like a, a small area, yeah that's true.

00:19:09.007 --> 00:19:11.176
That is definitely true, I think, for Mickey Rourke.

00:19:11.176 --> 00:19:33.047
In that movie, specifically Iron man 2, he perfected the the villain's slow walk towards the hero in a menacing way because that's the only speed he can go is slow, yeah, like especially after the racing scene, when he whips Tony Stark's car in half and he's just slowly walking towards, like if he actually hit it into like third gear or something, he probably would have got to Tony before he put his armor on.

00:19:33.167 --> 00:19:37.753
Oh yeah, it has to have that sort of dramatic, like Sailor Moon dress up.

00:19:38.156 --> 00:19:38.862
Oh yeah.

00:19:38.862 --> 00:19:49.819
Can I just say, though, you cannot deny that in Iron man 2, the different ways that they employed his getting on with Tony's suit tech, that upgrade was good.

00:19:49.819 --> 00:19:58.786
The briefcase where he put his fists into it and pulled his arms into it, oh yeah that was amazing, come on, man.

00:19:58.967 --> 00:19:59.929
No, like so.

00:19:59.929 --> 00:20:18.834
Two and three, they were amazing with the Iron man part, but what let them down for me was both the like as much as I hate to say about Mickey Rourke and Whiplash, but like the villains, and because of the weakness of the villains, it made the sort of story feel weak.

00:20:18.834 --> 00:20:22.288
Yes, I can agree with that, and the same like the second one.

00:20:22.288 --> 00:20:48.448
And I hated what they did with the Mandarin, how they, how they fucked around and made a big joke about the Mandarins, uh, about the Mandarin, and like how they sort of they retconned it by doing Shang-Chi, shang-chi, yep, and they were sort of retconning it a bit and how, like, making the Mandarin, he was an actor the whole time and stuff like that, but then the real Mandarin was, um, was his face that turned, made people glow and explode and shit.

00:20:48.448 --> 00:20:52.436
From the third movie yeah, I can't remember his name Cause it's so forgettable Justin Hammer.

00:20:52.436 --> 00:20:54.788
No, justin Hammer's Hammer Tech.

00:20:54.788 --> 00:20:55.892
Ah, right, okay.

00:20:56.071 --> 00:20:57.656
Yeah, we've, we've both forgotten it.

00:20:57.656 --> 00:21:25.988
Yeah, yeah, I remember being angry about the way that they handled the Mandarin, but looking back at it, I think it's very difficult to handle the Mandarin because he seems very comic book-y in terms of how he is origin-wise, like he is an all-powerful warlord with ten magical rings that originate from a spaceship that comes from another world that he repurposed the technology for, and then he's also a very heavily caricatured version of the chinese people.

00:21:25.988 --> 00:21:27.191
So it's like how can they?

00:21:27.652 --> 00:21:47.328
that's a really sort of touchy area that they probably didn't know how to creatively they sort of did that with um, the actor guy ben kingsley kingsley yeah, he was amazing in um chengchi um, but um, old trevor slattery but uh, yeah, even that like that and you'll never see me coming Like.

00:21:47.328 --> 00:21:57.135
I loved all that, but to me I think they missed opportunities with Iron man 2 and 3 with their bad guys, all right.

00:22:03.449 --> 00:22:09.513
This is our Fandom Fact Face-Off segment, where the hosts go head-to-head with the trivia about the Focus movie, learning new facts along the way.

00:22:09.513 --> 00:22:16.874
The host with the least amount of points at the end of the month loses and has to take the winner to an all-expenses-paid trip to the movies.

00:22:16.874 --> 00:22:25.372
This month, however, brash and I have done a Marvel team-up and we've earned enough points to send one of our lucky mailing list people to the movies.

00:22:25.372 --> 00:22:29.993
So we already have our winner for that giveaway and they're going to be announced at the end of this episode.

00:22:29.993 --> 00:22:43.134
But if you wanted to join our mailing list, which is at wwwfandomportalspodcastcom, you will receive updates on the happenings at the Fandom Portals Podcast once a month and you'll also be the first one to know about any future giveaways that we do.

00:22:43.134 --> 00:22:45.317
So lucky winner to be announced at the end of the podcast.

00:22:46.380 --> 00:22:51.788
This phantom fact face off, brash, is just for funsies, funsies.

00:22:51.788 --> 00:22:52.490
I'm gonna go first.

00:22:52.490 --> 00:22:52.790
Are you ready?

00:22:52.790 --> 00:22:54.193
Okay, okay.

00:22:54.193 --> 00:23:17.257
So this movie, iron man one made in 2008, had a very heavy presence of this particular branch of American culture and history, you might say, and it is one of the few times that this branch of history, slash culture, was heavily supported in a superhero film like this.

00:23:17.257 --> 00:23:26.959
Do you know which element of American culture, slash history, really supported Iron man in 2008?

00:23:27.019 --> 00:23:27.539
I've got two.

00:23:27.539 --> 00:23:31.131
Okay, either like military or industrial.

00:23:31.492 --> 00:23:33.648
Yes, it's the military, so specifically the Air Force.

00:23:33.648 --> 00:23:35.955
They actively supported the film's production.

00:23:35.955 --> 00:23:47.117
It was said that the Pentagon was very excited about Iron Man's portrayal of the military in such a positive light that they granted the production unprecedented access to all of their hardware and facilities.

00:23:47.117 --> 00:24:00.207
They even let them use the Edwards Air Force Base and they trained actors like Terrence Howard on using various different equipments and how officers behave and the protocols for military and the speech patterns and things like that.

00:24:00.207 --> 00:24:08.509
And they actually even used real life F-22 Raptor jets in the film and some of the pilots and actual military personnel actually appeared in the film also.

00:24:09.246 --> 00:24:15.309
And they also followed military guidelines in regards to weapons and armor depictions, which made that realistic.

00:24:15.309 --> 00:24:24.737
And they avoided portraying the military as an overly fantastical element, which I think was important, because Iron man is a weapons developer for the military.

00:24:24.737 --> 00:24:47.709
So if it was a fantastical element and Jon Favreau has gone on record to say that anything in a superhero movie is so larger than life, so whatever he could do to bring it back down to the real world, he would try to do and in making the military a real life sort of presence, especially in 2008 when there is a very big cultural knowledge of the war in Iraq that was going on.

00:24:47.709 --> 00:24:49.714
I think that was really important for them to do.

00:24:51.949 --> 00:24:59.048
Yeah, I like that point you made about the quote from Jon Favreau bringing it back down to the Earth.

00:24:59.048 --> 00:25:13.113
I think that's why I think Marvel has had such success, because they're using these fantastical creations of Stan Lee that are always, like it seems, larger than life, but it's always rooted in the real.

00:25:13.113 --> 00:25:26.873
Yes, and I think, instead of making some over-the-top, blown-out sort of realistic elements, help just us normal, unsuperpowered people like resonate more with the movies, yeah, and the characters too.

00:25:26.952 --> 00:25:33.032
I think it's really easy for a superhero movie to have an unrelatable protagonist which really kills the movie.

00:25:33.032 --> 00:25:45.890
But these marvel movies, these mcu movies, have a really great way of connecting us with the human side of this superhero and also the human side, or the real life side, of the world in which they live in, and that was one way that they did it.

00:25:45.890 --> 00:25:46.531
So I thought that was good.

00:25:46.531 --> 00:25:48.030
That's a point for you, brash.

00:25:48.144 --> 00:25:56.759
Which also is probably why I think, for me, I liked Thor 1 better than Thor 2.

00:25:56.759 --> 00:25:59.363
Yes, because Thor 2 was a bit over the top.

00:25:59.525 --> 00:26:09.144
That was like world hopping and grounded in mythology, really in the Norse mythology, in terms of the, the, the tree of life, or something like that.

00:26:09.144 --> 00:26:10.369
What's the Norse mythology for?

00:26:10.369 --> 00:26:11.750
The tree, the branches and the?

00:26:12.046 --> 00:26:12.849
yeah, each branch is.

00:26:12.849 --> 00:26:14.289
Each branch is a different realm.

00:26:14.289 --> 00:26:28.354
Yeah, yeah, so I think I think you're right there whereas, like the first one, he like your introduction to Thor is he gets banished to Earth and he loses all his powers, which is a great way to make a godly character relatable to people, exactly.

00:26:28.394 --> 00:26:29.496
Yeah, really great job.

00:26:29.496 --> 00:26:30.538
All right, your turn.

00:26:30.744 --> 00:26:31.066
Okay.

00:26:31.066 --> 00:26:36.836
So Jeff Bridges is usually one who's very meticulous about scripts.

00:26:36.836 --> 00:26:41.730
He likes to have a script, he likes to read it all the way through, memorize it word for word.

00:26:41.730 --> 00:26:50.181
In Iron man this wasn't the case as a lot of things were ad-lib, but he did say it took the pressures off and made it a lot more fun.

00:26:53.384 --> 00:26:55.673
But he says a quote about why I did read this.

00:26:55.673 --> 00:27:04.604
Actually, I watched him say it when I was doing my research for this and he said it was frustrating at first, but he said after collaborating with a few of the actors.

00:27:04.604 --> 00:27:11.571
And he said it was frustrating at first, but he said after collaborating with a few of the actors and talking about it, he said it was almost like making a 200 million dollar student film which was.

00:27:11.571 --> 00:27:24.556
And then he said that they all got to just sort of get in his trailer and talk about what they were going to shoot for the day and you know, downey would play a different character and John would play different characters and they'd talk each other through the scene.

00:27:24.556 --> 00:27:31.611
John Favreau would be on the phone talking to his writer buddies to see what they would shoot for that given day and he said it was kind of good to just jam.

00:27:31.872 --> 00:27:32.053
Yeah.

00:27:32.345 --> 00:27:35.372
And just relax in that place, because he said there was lots of frustrations.

00:27:35.372 --> 00:27:46.354
But then when he realized that he kind of let it all go and he said that that also kind of hopefully portrays on the screen, which I think it did.

00:27:46.354 --> 00:27:52.915
But I can imagine how it would be, because he is a very talented actor and he's got a very big breadth of cinematography behind him yeah and he obviously has a way of working and going into this project.

00:27:52.935 --> 00:27:53.727
It was completely different.

00:27:53.727 --> 00:28:02.596
So, yeah, good on him for sticking through it in that way, because I know that a lot of other actors may have been a little bit more disgruntled yeah, yeah, there was one.

00:28:02.596 --> 00:28:04.646
Oh, was it yeah is one of your questions.

00:28:04.646 --> 00:28:07.092
Okay, if not tell me that?

00:28:07.132 --> 00:28:13.011
yes, yes, so 200 million dollar student film was the quote he used very good for the um for a while.

00:28:13.011 --> 00:28:15.184
The quote he used to describe filming the movie.

00:28:15.645 --> 00:28:22.847
Yeah lovely, okay, so this question here, uh, I I have to ask this one because I really want to talk about it.

00:28:22.847 --> 00:28:34.261
So, so we know that Marvel had some tumultuous issues in terms of its rights for its characters and, as a result of that, the rights to Iron man floated around various different production companies.

00:28:34.261 --> 00:28:38.536
As it was doing that, there was lots of different people attached to the film to play the title role of Tony Stark.

00:28:38.536 --> 00:28:40.568
One of those people was Nicolas Cage.

00:28:40.568 --> 00:29:04.019
Another person was, uh, timothy oliphant was another one, but there was one particular actor in the early 1990s and, oh sorry, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, who was very, uh, heavily attached and even developed a script in association with stan lee to be a part of this iron man movie but, as a result of creative differences, decided to exit the leading role.

00:29:04.019 --> 00:29:05.390
Do you know who that actor was?

00:29:07.710 --> 00:29:15.693
I believe I do, because I've seen the memes and the things that I thought about it Was it Tom Cruise?

00:29:15.855 --> 00:29:16.218
It was.

00:29:16.218 --> 00:29:22.353
It was Tom Cruise and he said that he wanted a significant amount of creative control over the project.

00:29:22.353 --> 00:29:44.826
And because he wasn't allowed that and his script was it was more tonally toward the action blockbusters of the late nineties, early two thousands, as opposed to this spy thriller genre mishmash of of action comedy that Marvel was sort of heading towards, and because of that he decided to leave the project.

00:29:44.826 --> 00:29:55.959
But as a result we did get Jon Favreau attached who championed for Robert Downey Jr, which we have said is a very amazing and awesome casting choice.

00:29:55.959 --> 00:30:07.684
Obviously Robert Downey Jr had his personal struggles with addiction, which mirrored Stark's journey at the time, and there was that reckless sort of playboy and that responsible hero that was at odds with each other.

00:30:07.684 --> 00:30:14.317
And Cruise may not have captured that authenticity as well as Downey did.

00:30:14.778 --> 00:30:31.167
But Jon Favreau actually went on to say that the reason he advocated for Downey was because that the best and worst moments of Robert's life have been on display in the public eye and he had to find an inner balance to overcome obstacles that went far beyond his career.

00:30:31.167 --> 00:30:33.192
And he said that's literally Tony Stark.

00:30:33.192 --> 00:30:42.491
He said Robert brings depth to that character that goes beyond the comic books and it's more than the comic book character just having troubles in high school or they can't get the girl.

00:30:42.491 --> 00:30:46.078
So he wanted Tony Stark in this movie to be a likable asshole.

00:30:46.078 --> 00:30:56.034
And everybody especially during Downey's constant yo-yoing into rehab and prison but everybody was always they were like vouching for him.

00:30:56.034 --> 00:31:03.755
They wanted him to do really, really well and I think that is the exact same thing that he wanted people to feel for Tony Stark and it worked out well.

00:31:03.755 --> 00:31:06.660
It did, it did All right, your go Brash.

00:31:06.825 --> 00:31:07.890
So as we were talking about before.

00:31:07.890 --> 00:31:15.333
People had some troubles adjusting to the sort of craziness that was this movie in their amount of ad-libbing.

00:31:15.333 --> 00:31:31.976
But one person struggled the most because of Robert Downey Jr's sort of quick-wittedness and sometimes struggle to try and quickly think of something to respond back to him whenever he'd make up one of his lines.

00:31:31.976 --> 00:31:33.991
Do you know who that person was?

00:31:34.285 --> 00:31:41.291
I think, given the hindsight of it all, I want to say Terrence Howard, because he obviously didn't appear in Iron man 2, so there may have been some disagreement there.

00:31:41.291 --> 00:32:02.835
My other guess would be Gwyneth Paltrow, because she I think she actually came off an acting break, Like she had children or something and she came off an acting break, and because I read somewhere that she took this role because it was the studio was very close to where her children went to school so she could spend a lot of time with them and as a result of that she was kind of just dipping her toe back into the game of acting.

00:32:02.835 --> 00:32:05.178
So maybe that could have been a struggle for her.

00:32:05.178 --> 00:32:12.347
My other guess would be terrence howard, so I guess I could lock one in and I'll say terrence howard that's culture you're right in the second one flip the coin.

00:32:12.808 --> 00:32:21.673
Yeah, she, because, um, because he'd ad-libbed so much, he'd asked for a multitude of like reshoots, retakes of like the same scene.

00:32:21.673 --> 00:32:29.690
And she, she struggled that because every time he changed up and make something up new, she'd have to try and figure out something else to do, because she had no idea what he was going to say.

00:32:29.690 --> 00:32:43.215
Like she'd be like uh, uh and have trouble like thinking of thinking up something to respond to him because he'd want to do so many reshoots, because he'd say something like oh no, I don't think I like how that says let's do it again, do it again, say something different.

00:32:43.215 --> 00:32:47.229
And each time she also like I don't.

00:32:47.229 --> 00:32:57.647
Like she probably didn't have to, because if it was all sort of like a similar line, she probably could just say the same thing as a response, but I think, trying to go with the flow of it all, she was like trying to also.

00:32:57.669 --> 00:33:00.817
She can't do things, but I struggled because he had no idea what he was going to say.

00:33:00.836 --> 00:33:16.633
There's only so many lines you can come up with for the same, for the same scene god bless Gwyneth Paltrow yeah, yeah there's, uh, one, one um scene in the movie where it's towards the end when sort of Iron Man's hitting on Pepper a bit and she's like, oh, remember that night.

00:33:16.633 --> 00:33:22.333
Um, yes, and she describes the night like meticulously, and romantically.

00:33:22.333 --> 00:33:32.015
And then she's like and then you went to get me a drink and never came back and left me on the roof by myself and I was like, huh, she remembered that but didn't remember that she was in Spider-Man.

00:33:34.786 --> 00:33:35.911
Oh, good old Wes.

00:33:35.911 --> 00:33:55.328
Yeah, I think that that is just a testament to her character in this film, because I really like how they played her off and I read somewhere that Jon Favreau wanted her to be almost like the 1940s sitcom women that were alluring and attractive but also kind of funny and could stand up on their own and had their own sensibilities and things like that as well.

00:33:55.950 --> 00:34:05.837
I loved her Petrilla Pepper in the first one, I think as she went along she sort of lost that zip, yeah, yeah.

00:34:06.378 --> 00:34:11.762
I love her introduction scene where she's there saying uh, I've picked up the dry cleaning for you.

00:34:11.762 --> 00:34:20.411
Uh, there's a car waiting outside to take you anywhere you want to go and this this lady yeah, this lady thinks that she has the audacity to go and talk to pepper pepper.

00:34:20.431 --> 00:34:20.711
Pepper.

00:34:20.731 --> 00:34:26.648
Potts Like that, and she's literally wearing this shirt of Tony Stark from the night before.

00:34:26.648 --> 00:34:30.690
From a one night stand From a one night stand, yeah, and she thinks she's got the inside scoop.

00:34:30.690 --> 00:34:35.650
And Pepper's, just like I, also occasionally take out the trash when required and she's like, will there be anything else?

00:34:35.650 --> 00:34:38.769
And yeah, Gwyneth Paltrow's delivery in that just absolutely amazing.

00:34:38.931 --> 00:34:44.967
Yeah, because amazing.

00:34:44.967 --> 00:34:46.331
Yeah, because I love how she becomes like boss bitch.

00:34:46.331 --> 00:34:46.612
I love that.

00:34:46.612 --> 00:34:48.097
But, like I said, in doing so it sort of lost her sort of cheeky charm.

00:34:48.097 --> 00:34:51.855
Yes, and like, if you watch, like the animated series, pepper's always got that cheeky charm.

00:34:51.855 --> 00:34:58.764
Yeah, she sort of loses that and becomes a bit more stern and just business focused, yeah, which which she kind of has to do because she's running the company.

00:34:58.804 --> 00:35:03.297
She's running the company while, while tony the company, while Tony is out Garmenting yeah, being a hero, I guess.

00:35:04.248 --> 00:35:09.375
But yeah, I sort of miss that sort of zippy, sort of zesty, sort of Pepper Potts.

00:35:10.666 --> 00:35:25.284
I also read as well or saw in a making of for Iron man that her first scene that she shot was the ballroom scene and she said she'd just come back from having kids and she was wearing this open back dress in front of lots of people and she was really nervous.

00:35:25.284 --> 00:35:30.992
And she said that it kind of played into the role, because Pepper was nervous at that time too and she was struggling to keep up with Robert.

00:35:30.992 --> 00:35:33.853
But she said she also really wanted to work with Robert.

00:35:33.853 --> 00:35:37.347
It was like on her aspirations list, so she was really happy to be able to get to do that too.

00:35:37.347 --> 00:35:41.371
Did you know that one of her first roles was as young Wendy in Hook?

00:35:41.371 --> 00:35:45.195
Yes, yeah, yes, that was like her third role, acting role, and she was a young girl.

00:35:45.195 --> 00:35:47.778
Yeah, anyway, shout out Gwyneth Paltrow.

00:35:47.778 --> 00:35:49.561
All right, here is my question.

00:35:49.561 --> 00:35:51.547
I got that wrong, didn't I?

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So there is a very ingenuitive piece of cinematography in Iron man, all of the Iron man movies.

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Whenever you see Iron man on screen, there is always a really awesome piece of ingenuity that they used in the cinematography in terms of the heads-up display that iron man has when we're seeing his face inside the suit, and there's all the different sort of uh computer icons moving around.

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That was really hard to achieve because, uh, it sort of sit sat between this niche of computer generated images and visual effects, where they weren't just rendering 3d objects, they were actually making 3d objects float around in space.

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Uh, it was also hard to achieve because they they kind of had to get these objects to display a sense of, they had to display a sense of depth within the helmet and it was just really tricky to pull off.

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But if you'll notice, the, the heads-up display actually increases or changes as the marks of suits changes as well.

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And the creators of of this visual effect were inspired by two things.

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One of them was Dave's helmet from 2001, a space odyssey where you can see him putting in computer inputs and it's flashing up on his curved interface on his helmet and it sort of shows along his face and you are able to see Dave's reactions and things like that as well as the effects on the computer screen.

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So they're inspired by that.

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But there was also a really important piece of technology that came out in 2000.

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And man, do you know what that was?

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Short answer I have no idea.

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Long answer something maybe with VR.

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No, that was well, well after, but it was actually the Apple iPhone and the iPod.

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So the interface of the Apple iPod with the circular design where you could quickly click on something and hit into a subroutine, click the song that you wanted and then get straight out that circular dial that they used in the Mark III suit was actually inspired by that interface on the Apple iPod.

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So you can see that Tony can control his HUD display in three ways he can hear things coming from Jarvis, he can control them with his eyes or he can activate them through his own voice.

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So you will also see that heads-up display is turning a wheel and selecting one thing and then popping new information up on his screen, and the beautiful part about it is that it never obstructs his face.

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So we can always get the visual emotional resonance from the scene from Robert, as we need to as well.

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So they use that compact, state-of-the-art technology that Apple was bringing out that really featured in its simplicity, to influence the heads-up display.

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Yeah, yeah, I thought so, because one of the biggest things that's a problem in superhero movies is when they're being their human self.

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It's really easy for the audience to relate to the character, but every single superhero wears a mask and as soon as they put that mask on and sometimes they go through the most emotional scenes when they're wearing their mask, but you don't see any emotion on the human's face because of the mask that's obscuring them.

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So Jon Favreau wanted to avoid that and really wanted to play into how nuanced Robert Downey Jr was with his facial expressions and give life to Iron man while he was in his suit, because so many people thought that he was just a robot instead of a man inside a suit.

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So they used that technology, which has become a staple in the MCU now for uh, for that purpose.

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Let's get into your next question the ending of the movie was actually meant to be changed and could have drastically changed the rest of the Iron man movies going forward.

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But yeah, there was a part in the movie that was meant to change and it would have been a pivotal for one of the characters in this movie going forward and could have changed a lot of what Iron man 2 and Iron man 3 were going to be.

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Is it a moment that happened in the movie that?

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was going to be changed.

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Yep, I know, at the very end Robert Downey improvised the line of I am Iron man, yeah, and that actually was a breaking of the tradition for the secret identity trope for superheroes, because that was happening all through Spider-Man.

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Fun fact, when Coulson was like oh, we're going to say that Iron Man's your bodyguard, blah, blah, and he's like nah, that's a ridiculous idea.

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That's actually how, in the comics, iron man got away with his dual identity Iron man was his bodyguard.

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That is actually true, yeah, very well done.

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Another different oh, is it got something to do?

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I know at the end of the movie, terrence Howard, who plays Rhodey, looks at an Iron man suit and said next time, baby.

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And then he never got that.

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Next time, no, nothing to do with Terrence Howard.

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I don't know this one then.

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So Jeff Bridges actually said that originally Obidus Dane was not meant to die and that he was going to possibly there's a possibility of him returning in the future Iron man movie.

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I think I did read something like that as well because he or somebody said that they were going to open up the suit and he was going to be gone.

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Yeah, and then initially Obadiah Stane was going to be the big villain for the second movie and the villain for the first movie was going to be the Mandarin.

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