The Armor's Blueprints

Today The Panel Biter is introducing a new segment to further celebrate the new year, it's called Beyond The Screen. For this segment I will be taking various comic book movies, ripping them open and sharing all their trivial inners with you, my hungry readers. Starting with The Iron Man Trilogy.

Before we look over the first movie, lets start things off with it's earlier versions. These scripts were first conceived back in 1990 and an early draft featured Tom Cruise as Tony Stark/Iron Man with an armor that featured revealed abs and a glass faceplate to show Cruise's face 24/7. Another version of this script had Tony Stark's father Howard Stark not only living, but as the main villain of the movie by using the War Machine armor. This script would have also tied into Spider-Man 2 by insinuating that Doctor Octopus' arms were created by Tony Stark. Getting into the actual movie, it's director Jon Favreau had to literally reconstruct the script while making the movie. This led to Favreau and Robert Downey Jr improvising a majority of scenes and lines for the movie. Gwyneth Paltrow had requested Marvel to send her comic books that'd better help her understand her character Pepper Potts, Jeff Bridges also did the same in preparation for his role as Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger. Tony Stark's computer system JARVIS was originally his butler in the main comics. The decision to convert Jarvis into a computer system was out of worry that viewers would compare him to Batman's butler, Alfred. While Agent Phil Couslon would go on to have a bigger role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, his role in Iron Man 1 was meant to be smaller, with early casting sheets credit Coulson's actor Clark Gregg as "Agent". While Stan Lee based Tony Stark/Iron Man off of Howard Hughes in the 60's, Favreau's inspiration behind Tony's movie characterization was drawn from J. Robert Oppenheimer. Sam Rockwell was one of the many actors in the running to play Tony Stark in Iron Man 1. While RDJ got the part, Rockwell was given a role by Favreau to play Justin Hammer-an anti Tony Stark-in Iron Man 2. James Rhodes/Rhodey/War Machine/Iron Patriot was originally played by Terrence Howard in Iron Man 1, but was dropped from franchise after a payment dispute with Marvel Studios and was replaced by Don Cheadle in Iron Man 2. Mickey Rourke was cast as Ivan Vanko, to prepare for his role Rourke learned Russian, payed out of pocket for the character's cosmetics and even visited a Moscow prison to understand his role better. Ivan Vanko became the villain Whiplash in Iron Man 2, but his character was actually written as an combination of three different Iron Man villains: Whiplash, Backlash and Crimson Dynamo. Iron Man 3 included more reconstructions of the source material starting with The Iron Patriot. In the comics, The Iron Patriot was a persona taken up by Norman Osborn, the former Green Goblin. There is a scene in Iron Man 3 where Tony forms his armor around Pepper Potts to protect her, Potts' brief use of the Iron Man armor is a callback to Potts having her own armor in the comics called The Rescue Armor. The three main Extremis patients of Iron Man 3 are based off minor Marvel villains: Coldblood, Firepower and Ellen Brandt. Although The Mandarin doesn't appear until Iron Man 3, he maintains a presence in the previous movies. His terrorist organization The Ten Rings are the group who kidnapped Tony in Iron Man 1. The man who gave Ivan Vanko his U.S. citizenship papers in Iron Man 2 was a member of The Ten Rings. The comics presented The Mandarin as an Asian megalomaniac who possesses ten alien rings. It was also in the original comics that Tony was held hostage by Vietnamese terrorists. For the Iron Man trilogy the Mandarin and his terrorist group were updated to be middle eastern to keep the movies modern.
While Iron Man may be popular now, it is surprising just how many changes from the comics and the early scripts were needed to make the movies a success. They aren't perfect, as Iron Man 2 had a lot of demands from Marvel Studios resulting in Favreau refusing to direct Iron Man 3. The third movie caught some flack because of what was done to The Mandarin. I could state my two cents, but my opinion of The Mandarin can wait for another day. Until then, I hope this Beyond The Screen gave you readers an idea of how thought out these movies can be. Thanks for reading!