By: Russ Burlingame on November 26, 2012
Marvel’s Iron Man 3 is on the cover of Empire Magazine this week, which means that there’s information floating around but not yet officially on the Empire website (as they tend to hang onto things for a few days to sell print copies) — but that hasn’t stopped a number of quotes from Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige from making their way to the Internet.
Of course, he hasn’t limited his interviews to Empire, either, giving Bang Showbiz an interview that has appeared in The West Australian and on Yahoo! Movies as well.
Here’s a round-up of some of the more interesting bits to come out of those conversations:
“Iron Man 3 doesn’t feature any of the other Avengers, or Nick Fury showing up, or any of those world-blending conceits that the Phase One films had,” Feige told Empire (via Comic Book Movie). “You have to keep in mind that Iron Man 3 had been in the works for almost a year, year and a half before The Avengers was released. We’re sticking to the vision for these films, and showing once again that these characters are just as interesting alone as they are together.”
“[Iron Man 3 is] not a serious movie, but we seriously dig into exploring more of Tony,” Feige told Bang Showbiz. “The trick is just trying to make great movies. We try to make them all great, all different and all fresh. What you’ll see in Iron Man 3 is some very unique directions that were taken.”
In that same interview, Shane Black added, “We’re not aiming for bigger, necessarily. We’re aiming for different and fresh and new. It’s all about capturing that lightning-in-a-bottle feel, about trying to get as much into this as we can. We’re looking to get a ton of thrills into a short space, to make a nice little stew for you.”
A key ingredient in that stew is, of course, the Mandarin. Feige explained to Empire that “Early – and very late – drafts of Iron Man 1 featured The Mandarin as a villain. The Mandarin is his most famous foe in the comics mainly because he’s been around the longest. If you look, there’s not necessarily a definitive Mandarin storyline in the comics. So it was really about having an idea. In terms of the Fu Manchu stereotyping that was involved, we never had any interest in that. He’s relentless. Assuming that he’s the one responsible for what happens to Tony’s house, no other villain has been able to strike that fast and that hard at one of our heroes. He’s very much about believing that the world needs to learn, and he wants to bend the world to his vision.”
There’s surely more that hasn’t been picked up yet; look for additional details over the next day or so once we get our copy of Empire.
