The folks over at Empire had a little chat with Jon Favreau, director of Iron Man 2 and its super-successful predecessor, as well as Mickey Rourke, that other famous comeback actor in the movie.
Favreau hinted at the story arc for Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark character and little about Don Cheadle sporting some cool tech as the eagerly anticipated War Machine. About the plot, Favs says that Mr. Stark is under a ton of pressure and that he needs an outlet for that (alcohol?). As for Jim Rhodes, Favs had this to say:
“Rhodes is definitely stepping up in this film. Let me put it this way: Tony’s not the only person with technology in the film.”
We already knew that we’d be seeing the character sport the awesome War Machine armor from back in April. It was hinted prior to that during the first movie and was rumored back when Terrence Howard was still to play Rhodey in the sequel.
Empire also had a chance to talk with Mickey Rourke, who’s come out of nowhere to be participating in a plethora of big films in recent times. After all the confusion surrounding what character he’d be playing in Iron Man 2, it continues to look like it’s Whiplash and not Crimson Dynamo.
In the conversation, Rourke gave some info about the suit he’ll be sporting in the film:
“I’m having the time of my life! It’s been really brutal, because my Iron Man suit weighs 23lb. It’s sort of a half-suit, with half my skin showing, with lots of Russian tattoos, because [Whiplash is just] out of a Russian-zone prison.”
From what Rourke says, we can knock out the rumored concept art design of Whiplash that we saw just over a week ago. What Rourke describes sounds pretty cool though – I wonder if they’ll be making him look bigger like they did with Vinnie Jones’ Juggernaut in X-Men: The Last Stand. Either way, it sounds pretty cool.
As soon as we get more info on the character designs (and hopefully, some new pics!), we will let you know.
What do you think of the brief Whiplash description and the idea of seeing War Machine kick some ass in Iron Man 2?
Iron Man 2 kicks off next year’s summer season on May 7, 2010.