The Real Mandarin Could Exist In The Marvel Cinematic Universe

While Iron Man 3 was a huge hit at the worldwide box office, it was a very controversial movie in the comic book fan community, because of one big twist. Spoiler Warning: If you haven't seen Iron Man 3 by now, then you probably have no intention of seeing it, but be warned that spoilers follow anyway.

Instead of playing the Mandarin in Iron Man 3, Ben Kingsley was actually revealed to be an actor named Trevor Slattery, who was hired to play the Mandarin. However, when asked by IGN about the possibility of the real Mandarin appearing in a future Marvel Studios film, Marvel Studios President of Production Kevin Feige had the following to say

There have been [talks]. That's one of the reasons we wanted to do the fun short that Drew Pearce wrote and directed. That was to clarify, 'Hey, just because we did this thing doesn't mean this other thing doesn't exist.' And as we were making Iron Man 3 -- and I think Drew's spoken about this -- that was always our intention, was that Aldrich Killian was perverting the notion of these things he's heard.

Feige also added, "There's a little bit of that when he's doing his detective work in his lab after Happy's been injured outside the Chinese Theater. He's talking about, 'Okay, the Mandarin is taken from various iconographies and mythologies from across the world.' The idea was always there was somebody like this. There had been rumors of somebody like this, and Aldrich Killian just built on that, to make his version."