Iron Man (2008)

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Iron Man
"Heroes aren't born. They're built."
Directed By	Jon Favreau
Screenplay By	Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum, Matt Holloway
Cast	Robert Downey Jr., Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow
Produced By	Avi Arad, Kevin Feige
Cinematography By	Matthew Libatique
Film Editing By	Dan Lebental, Glen Scantlebury
Music By	Ramin Djawadi
Studio	Marvel Studios, Fairview Entertainment
Distributed By	Paramount Pictures
Franchise	Marvel Cinematic Universe
Country	United States
Language	English
Release Date	May 2, 2008
Runtime	126 Minutes
Rating	PG-13
Budget	$140,000,000
Gross	$585,174,222

Overview

Iron Man is a 2008 American produced superhero film starring Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, and Gwyneth Paltrow. It was directed by Jon Favreau and is a film adaptation of best selling and long standing high-tech superhero playboy Tony Stark aka the Invincible Iron Man of Marvel Comics. The film is credited with launching the Marvel Cinematic Universe (or the MCU) and was retroactively listed as the premiere film of their Phase One Series.

The film won several Saturn and Scream Awards and in particular, its lead actor Robert Downey, Jr. a number of accolades. His performance and success as Tony Stark/Iron Man in the film not only reinvigorated his flagging career but catapulted him to all new levels of worldwide fame, success, and popularity. It also had two direct sequels, Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3 with Downey also reprising his role throughout numerous related films in the MCU. It has also been inducted into the National Film Registry for preservation for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" in 2022.

Billionaire industrialist and ladies' man Tony Stark is hailed as the "Da Vinci of His Times" by his pundits for his engineering skills and brilliant creative mind ... and sardonically referred to as "The Merchant of Death" for manufacturing munitions that have killed millions across the globe. Armored with a sarcastic wit, a legendary ego, and a cynical heartlessness; Tony turns a blind eye to his war profiteering until he is kidnapped by a band of ruthless terrorists who want his weapons for themselves.

Held hostage by the fanatical Ten Rings, Stark bitterly realizes that he is a man with everything ... and nothing save for his own wits and will. Forged in the hopelessness of despair, Tony crafts a weapon out of scrap metal and spare parts and escapes ... a changed man. Inspired by his escape and transformation, Stark will craft a new technology unlike anything the world has ever seen before and use it to save the very people that he once blindly destroyed. To redeem himself and to prove that Tony Stark has a heart as the Invincible Iron Man! Because heroes aren't born ... they're built!

Plot

Tony Stark is the only child of noted industrialist and weapons manufacturer Howard Stark; a business titan who helped develop the Atomic Bomb for the United States. With the help of his friend and close business associate, Obadiah Stane; Howard Stark created his own company and became a multimillionaire from virtually nothing with only his intellect and engineering talents. Hailed a prodigy and a brilliant engineer following in the footsteps of his legendary father, Tony is noted for having built his first circuit board at the tender age of four and has achieved nothing but more fantastic and noteworthy technological wonders ever since from robotics, advanced propulsion systems, and even his own Artificial Intelligence; J.A.R.V.I.S. (Just A Rather Very Intelligent System) who acts as his Virtual Assistant.

With the death of his father as a teen, Tony has inherited his father's company, Stark Industries (S.I.) at the tender of age of 21 and has gone on to transform it into a manufacturing juggernaut that is the premiere weapons manufacturer for the entire United States ... and earning a notorious reputation for his lavish playboy lifestyle and sarcastic wit by his late thirties.

Behold! The Jericho!

Alongside his long friend and military liaison Colonel James "Rhodey" Rhodes in the fields of Afghanistan, Stark successfully demonstrates his latest creation, the Jericho Missile to a group of US Generals. After blowing them away with the Jericho's overwhelming destructive firepower, Stark strolls away with a huge contract for his weapon. However on the way back, their convoy is attacked.

Forced to flee his Humvee, Tony frantically tries to take cover only to be bombarded with the shrapnel of a missile; ironically bearing his own company's namesake. Waking up in a cave, Tony finds himself a captive of the Ten Rings; a terrorist organization. Another captive of the Ten Rings; a doctor known as Ho Yinsen is forced to take the extraordinary and horrifically painful step of physically implanting an electromagnet hooked up to a car battery into Stark's chest in order to keep the shrapnel embedded in it from burying themselves in his heart and killing him. Yinsen also finds himself recruited as Tony's translator who informs the billionaire industrialist that he will build a Jericho Missile for the Ten Rings and in exchange, they will release him. Tony bitterly smiles and agrees while solemnly scoffing at that lie to Yinsen who gravely agrees with Stark's assessment.

With the help of Yinsen, Tony creates a miniaturized arc reactor that is socketed in his chest, replacing the car battery electromagnet. Yinsen is flabbergasted when Tony casually informs him that the reactor will produce three gigajoules per second and remarks that it excessive as it would run Stark's heart for fifty lifetimes. Tony counters that alternatively, it could run something ... bigger for maybe fifteen minutes. He reveals his ultimate plans to Yinsen; using the resources given to them by the Ten Rings against them and construct a mechanical suit of armor with built-in weaponry that will be run by the arc reactor.

Over the next few months, Tony and Yinsen work frantically to build the armor, struggling to hide their efforts from their captors. But the leader of this faction of the Ten Rings, Raza is not fooled and demands results; sending a group of soldiers to drag the pair from their workshop. An improvised explosive device set up by Stark detonates, killing the group and Yinsen, in a desperate attempt to buy more time for the suit to finish powering up; seizes one of their weapons and charges down the tunnel entrance, shooting wildly. Yinsen however finds himself outnumbered and is fatally shot. His sacrifice however bought enough time for Stark to destroy the opposition and badly burns Raza while burying him in a minor cave in. Tony discovers a dying Yinsen who begs him to finish his escape and to not waste his life. Tony solemnly thanks him and proceeds to destroy the rest of the encampment and flies out before the stored weapons explode. His armored suit's rockets quickly exhaust themselves and Tony crashes in the desert where he abandons his wrecked suit. He is soon found by a search party led by Rhodey who noticed the large explosion.

Returning home, Tony is enthusiastically reunited with his key confidants; Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan, and Obadiah Stane. He immediately calls for a press conference and Pepper is approached by Agent Phil Coulson who announces himself as representing the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division who wants to personally debrief Tony regarding his escape and reluctantly agrees to make an appointment for the soft spoken federal agent.

At the press conference, Tony announces that Stark Industries will no longer manufacture weapons. His father's long time friend and business manager, Obadiah Stane hastily ends the impromptu press conference and tries to reason with Tony. Obadiah reminds him that S.I. is a weapons manufacturer and they are essentially "iron mongers". Without weapons, S.I. don't have anything to build. Tony points out that arc reactor technology is a viable alternative, pointing out the large arc reactor in the building that powers the entire S.I. complex. Obadiah scoffs at that, countering that arc reactor tech was a publicity stunt and was never economically viable resulting in Tony revealing that he has made a significant breakthrough; showing the miniaturized arc reactor implanted in his chest that is keeping him alive. Obadiah agrees to try and help restructure S.I. but wants Tony to keep a low profile and keep him in the loop.

Pepper subsequently finds herself recruited in helping Tony replace his arc reactor with a new and more powerful model. Pepper is horrified but manages to implant the new chest piece and is afterwards told to discard the prototype version as it is now obsolete garbage. Afterwards, Tony visits Rhodey; wanting to bring his friend in on his newest project while hinting that he has plans to replace airplanes with just a pilot. Rhodey dismisses Tony's outrageous claims, assuming that Tony is jerking him around but is relieved that Tony is apparently rethinking his no-weapons stance for S.I. Tony however insists that he was serious and his new brainstorm has nothing to do with the military. Rhodey shuts him down, insisting that Tony needs some time to think and recuperate from his ordeal.

Tony ignores Rhodey and immediately begins designing his newest idea; a streamlined suit of armor powered by a mini-arc reactor that would replace airplanes. Without a test pilot though, Tony decides to step into the role himself and begins experimenting with the ready aid of J.A.R.V.I.S. He quickly runs into some minor kinks in his design work as the leg mounted repulsors blast him into a wall.

Halfway around the world in the sandy dunes of Afghanistan, the Ten Rings are hard at work as well. Raza has survived with a badly burned face and is having his men comb the desert and they locate the broken remnants of the prototype armored suit and begin to meticulously reassemble it...

It's not a weapon, it's a flight stabilizer. Well, maybe it's both?

While struggling to perfect a set of hand mounted flight stabilizers; Tony inadvertently discovers that they are also extremely potent as weapons when he is visited by Obadiah.

Stane glumly reports that the S.I. Stockholders Board is not thrilled over Stark's public declarations. With S.I.'s stock prices have been in freefall ever since, the Board of Directors is filing an injunction against Tony, claiming post-traumatic stress and intend to remove him.

Obadiah is worried but Tony dismisses his concerns as he and Stane have a controlling interest of stocks; with both of them united, the Board doesn't really have a say in S.I. Obadiah presses for Tony to help him allay the fears of the board; suggesting that they present a model of the mini-arc reactor to show that they have a replacement for their nonexistent product line but Tony prefers to maintain exclusivity over his design and dismisses Obadiah, eagerly rushing back to complete his Mark II Armor and immediately decides to take it for a test flight.

Despite J.A.R.V.I.S.' attempts at caution, Tony takes an aerial joyride of Los Angeles and is overwhelmingly delighted at his success. He is so pleased, that he promptly tries to push the limits of the design and test its high altitude capabilities. Approaching the upper atmosphere, the suit ices up and causes the entire system to shut down and Tony plummets to the ground before he deploys the emergency flaps, snapping the ice and allowing J.A.R.V.I.S. to hastily reboot the suit and barely escaping a fiery crash landing. Afterwards, Tony chooses to have J.A.R.V.I.S. build the Mark III Armor out a gold titanium alloy to prevent future icing problems but quickly finds the all golden suit to be "too ostentatious" and requires a little hot rod red trim.

As J.A.R.V.I.S. begins repainting the Mark III; Tony opens a present from Pepper and discovers that she has mounted his discarded arc reactor in a glass case with a inscribed note "Proof That Tony Stark Has A Heart". Bemused, Tony overhears a news broadcast relating to a benefit dinner funded by his company along with a news commentator's remarks about his unstable mental state and behavior. Despite not being invited to the benefit, Tony decides to gate crash the party and runs into Obadiah, Pepper, and Agent Phil Coulson who continues to press him for an appointment. Tony brushes Coulson off, distracted by Pepper in a stunning dress and the pair have a brief romantic moment. Their moment is swiftly spoiled by the revelation of Stark weapons being used by the Ten Rings in Gulmira; which Tony realizes is Yinsen's home town. Tony immediately confronts Obadiah who do not refute his accusations about illegal arms dealing. A stunned Tony is further shocked when Obadiah admits that he was the one who filed the injunction against Tony in order to "protect" him. A dispirited and horrified Tony leaves the party and Pepper behind.

At home, Tony grimly begins modifications to the Mark III; transforming the flight suit into a weapon of war before he proceeds to fly to Gulmira. He immediately confronts the Ten Rings and wipes out their stockpile of armaments. However his offensive is noticed by both Raza and the US Military who see him flying off. The US military immediately seek to destroy the unknown intruder which they assume is an advanced drone of some kind.

Colonel Rhodes finds himself tapped to identify the unknown advanced technology and suspicious over the coincidence, tries to contact Stark who tries to conceal his activities at first. However Tony is being increasingly pressured by a pair of American planes. Unwilling to attack innocent pilots; Tony is forced to confess that he is indeed responsible for the intruder in Gulmira. He further admits that the intruder is not a drone but a manned suit and that he is piloting it. Rhodey tries to get the US Commander to call off the attack but before he can do so; one of the planes is critically damaged and Tony risks his life to save the pilot from a parachute malfunction and proceeds to escape. He asks casually if Rhodey is now interested in coming over and finding out just what he's been up only for Rhodey to tell him that it's safer if he doesn't know just what Tony is up to even as he is struggles to cover up the Gulmira escapade with the news media.

Tony is unable to return home completely unscathed as Pepper inadvertently discovers him in his battered suit of armor and just what he has been up to.

Shortly afterwards, Obadiah visits Raza in Gulmira and inspects his burns; remarking that had Raza did his job and killed Stark; he might still have a face. Raza sneers, proclaiming that Stane had tried to cheat them as he paid them a pittance to destroy a small convoy; not kill Tony. Raza reluctantly admits that it might not have been a bad thing however; revealing the reconstructed prototype armor that the Ten Rings have recovered. Raza proclaims that Stark has been busy, refining his design but he is willing to gift the prototype to Obadiah ... in exchange for an army of iron soldiers to rule the Middle East.

Studying the prototype, Obadiah notices the empty slot in the chest piece and realizes the key behind the armor's capabilities is the mini arc reactor and why Tony is so jealously protective of it. Obadiah proceeds to use an experimental Stark Industries' Sonic Taser to paralyze Raza and has his men execute the rest of the Ten Rings camp while looting the prototype armor for himself. Stane immediately commissions a group of S.I. researchers to set up a hidden laboratory in Section 16 in order to reverse-engineer an improved version of the prototype armor.

Recovering from his latest Afghanistan adventure, Tony has been busy searching for evidence of the illegal arms shipments and has been unable to find anything. He asks Pepper to secretly plug in a special ghost drive that will hack into the S.I. mainframe and hopefully find any hidden files that he will be able to track down his weapons. Pepper defies him, proclaiming that she will not help Tony commit suicide only for Tony to quietly pronounce that he isn't crazy but he wouldn't even be alive unless it was for a reason and that this is why.

Pepper acquiesces but instead of shipping manifests; she discovers several blueprints of the prototype armor and references to Sector 16 along with a video sent to Obadiah by the Ten Rings with a dazed and badly wounded Stark shortly after they attacked his convoy. In the video, the Ten Rings angrily demand a much bigger ransom for after discovering that while Stane had paid them to attack a convoy; but not to kill Tony Stark. She subsequently runs into Agent Coulson loitering around for his forgotten appointment and drags him off to show him the files.

Obadiah belatedly discovers that Pepper downloaded the S.I. database and rushes to Sector 16 for a progress report. The lead scientist admits that they have run into a bit of a snag: the power source needed to run the suit ... it doesn't actually exist. A fuming Obadiah bellows that Tony was able to build it in a cave with a box of scraps only for the scientist to ruefully admit that he's not Tony Stark.

Realizing that he only has one option, Stane ambushes Tony at home with the Sonic Taser and forcibly extracts the mini arc reactor from Stark's chest, admitting to his chagrin that he is disappointed that Tony can't see the big picture. Obadiah admires the reactor and proudly states how the next generation of weapon technologies will all be unmatched with Tony's genius at their heart and allow S.I. to continue to dominate as the world's preeminent armament company. He admits that he really wanted to show Tony his modified armor design and he will reluctantly have to kill Pepper as well since she is involved.

Pepper frantically contacts Rhodey, relating how Obadiah tried to assassinate Tony in Afghanistan and that she cannot get in touch with him. Rhodey rushes to Stark's home and finds that Tony has managed to crawl to his workshop and hastily reinstall his "Proof That Tony Stark Has A Heart" arc reactor gifted to him by Pepper. Tony is alarmed when Rhodey tries to reassure him that Pepper is with federal agents to arrest Obadiah and begs Rhodey to help him put on the repaired Mark III.

Meanwhile, Pepper along with Coulson and a squad of fellow agents have forced their way into Sector 16 and are quickly overwhelmed by Obadiah in his prototype armor. Defeating the federal agents, he pursues Pepper; intent on killing her when he is interrupted by Tony in the Mark III armor and the pair begin a furious duel. However Tony begins to lose ground due to the fact that his original arc reactor was never designed for sustained combat and becomes rapidly depleted. He is further hampered by his attempt to protect innocent civilians which Obadiah grimly dismisses as cannon fodder. Tony soon finds himself flying into the upper atmosphere while Obadiah follows him.

However just as Obadiah is able to catch him, his Iron Monger Armor runs into the same problem as the Mark II did; icing over and causing the suit to malfunction. Tony has little time to gloat as his arc reactor is now on emergency auxiliary power and no longer has enough juice to even maintain his flight capabilities.

Tony barely avoids a crash landing on the roof of S.I.'s large scale arc reactor plant where Obadiah reveals that he has survived his own icy plummet and renews their confrontation. Tony clandestinely contacts Pepper and orders her to overload of the arc reactor plant. The shockwave of the overloading reactor catches the Iron Monger Armor full on, killing Stane even as it manages to jolt Tony's depleted arc reactor back to life.

Several days later, Tony is about to host a press conference and is reading a newspaper article about his clash with the Iron Monger and admits that the name that the reporters came up, "Iron Man" isn't bad. Agent Coulson produces a detailed alibi for Tony and earns the gratitude of Pepper for his aid although she can't quite remember the full title of his organization; the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division which he helpfully shortens to S.H.I.E.L.D. As the press conference begins, Tony starts to give the cover story only to hesitate and then proceeds to bluntly announce, "I am Iron Man" resulting in a complete media frenzy.

Cast

• Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man
• Terrence Howard as James "Rhodey" Rhodes
• Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane
• Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts
• Shaun Toub as Yinsen
• Faran Tahir as Raza
• Paul Bettany voices J.A.R.V.I.S.
• Leslie Bibb as Christine Everhart
• Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson
• Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury
• Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan
• Bill Smitrovich as General Gabriel
• Peter Billingsley as William Ginter Riva
• Gerard Sanders as Howard Stark
• Nazanin Boniadi as Amira Ahmed
• Ricki Lander as Flight Attendant
• Tom Morello as Guard
• Allison McAtee as Dubai Beauty
• America Olivo as Dubai Beauty

Production

An Iron Man movie project was in development limbo for nearly two decades when the live action film rights to the character was first purchased by Universal Pictures in 1990 after a surge of Hollywood interest in potential superhero films after the blockbuster 1989 Batman film by Tim Burton.

Universal originally had plans for a low budget direct-to-video film based on the concept of Iron Man until there was a successive series of similar Marvel based direct-to-video film projects including The Punisher and Captain America which failed to attract much attention or financial success. As a result, Universal's interest in pursuing the project waned and eventually chose to pass on the rights to the property to 20th Century Fox a few years later.

Early Iron Man Concept Art

Fox had an early screenplay by Jeff Vintar developed which had Tony Stark/Iron Man facing off MODOK, a mutated supervillain and leader of the Advanced Ideas Mechanics in the late 1990s. Both Tom Cruise and Nicolas Cage expressed interest in starring as the leading man of Tony Stark in the Fox film proposal. However Fox already had several Marvel superhero properties such as the X-Men; Daredevil; and the Fantastic 4 films already in development at this time. Deciding to exclusively focus on those films instead, Fox ultimately shelved the Iron Man film project which was instead picked up by New Line Cinema in 2000.

New Line however wished to start fresh and went back to the script writers. The first draft submitted in 2002 was written by Tim McCanlies which featured the Mandarin as the main villain and Pepper Potts as Tony Stark's love interest with a cameo appearance by Nick Fury to set up his own feature film which was also in development by New Line.

However New Line was unable to secure a suitable director willing to take on the project and in 2004, hired David Hayter to write a new script which featured Howard Stark (Tony's father) as the main enemy, taking on the role of War Machine with long-time love interest in the Iron Man comics; Bethany Cabe being written in as Tony Stark's sweetheart/love interest. Nick Cassavetes was attached to the project as its director but by 2005 however, the legal rights to Iron Man slipped through the cracks and reverted back to Marvel Comics from New Line thanks to their delayed and stalled production of the project.

By this time however, things had changed at Marvel Comics. Unlike in the early 90s when the nearly bankrupt company had auctioned off the filming rights of their various characters including Iron Man; a new Chief Operating Officer had secured financing from Merrill Lynch for ten independent films. Marvel immediately decided to seek self-producing their own comic book characters into their own films; maintaining both creative control and greater financial profit for themselves as shown through the international success of the recently released Spider-Man and X-Men films. Unfortunately, the legal rights to most of their most famous and well known characters such as the Hulk, Spider-Man, Blade, Ghost Rider, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men were already tied up with other film companies who were loathe to relinquish them.

Of the remaining major superheroes that Marvel still retaining filming rights to; Captain America and Thor had already been adapted to live action films and to infamous ridicule as well for their relatively poor adaptations. The newly promoted head of production, Keven Feige immediately latched onto the character of Iron Man to become the headliner of their new ambitious series of films. Feige believed that Iron Man had the potential to attract attention and audiences with the added advantage as having never before been portrayed in live action films and thus lacked any negative baggage to overcome.

Feige reached out to over 30 writers to write a new screenplay and was repeatedly refused due to the general obscurity of the character and the newness of their production studio. Feige also found that the general public commonly assumed that the character was in fact a robot and pushed for several animated adaptations featuring or co-starring Iron Man in the Marvel Animated Features to build up both interest and awareness of the character.

Director Jon Favreau directs Robert Downey Jr.

Jon Favreau was chosen to helm the film in 2006 as director and hired a team of writers including Art Marcum, Matt Holloway, Mark Fergus, and Hawk Ostby to write various versions of the screenplay; Marcum and Holloway writing one version and Fergus and Ostby writing the other. Favreau personally chopped up and cherry picked what he felt were the best parts of both screenplays and even reached out to various Marvel Comics writers and editors such as Mark Millar, Brian Michael Bendis, Joe Quesada, Tom Brevoort, Axel Alonso, and Ralph Macchio to help refine the the script even as scriptwriter John August went over and compiled the final product.

Even as Favreau worked extensively with scriptwriters to finish a screenplay for the film; he began an extensive search for the cast and had finalized his choice to newcomer Sam Rockwell for the primary role until Robert Downey, Jr. did a screen test for the part. Despite fierce opposition from studio execs, Favreau cast Robert Downey, Jr. as the iconoclastic Tony Stark/Iron Man in 2007. Downey engaged in an extensive regimen of weight training and martial arts to build himself up to handle the physical demands of the role even as he worked with Favreau to polish and revise the dialogue of the character despite the fact that shooting had already begun.

Finishing the Iron Monger Model

The Mandarin was originally the primary set villain of the film with Obadiah Stane serving as a secondary one until the last minute; noted comic book scribe Mark Millar persuaded Favreau that the character of the Mandarin was simply too unrealistic for the film.

Rather, Millar suggested that the Mandarin would be a suitable background character akin to Emperor Palpatine from the Star Wars Franchise or Lord Sauron from the Middle-Earth Franchise; he required suitable build-up to ramp up his menace. However, the last minute change also resulted in a massive rewrite of the script in many places with many shooting scenes having no actual dialogue forcing the cast to improvise their lines in many cases.

Filming began on March 12, 2007 and ran until June 25, 2007 and was performed primarily in California with scenes shot in the Alabama Hills, Santa Monica Pier, Blue Cloud Movie Ranch, Playa Vista, Willow Film Ranch, Long Beach, Malibu, and Los Angeles. Interior scenes of Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada was also used.

Celebrated make-up effects artist Stan Winston built several models of the Iron Man and Iron Monger Armors. This included a single 90 pound suit built out of metal and rubber that was used as the original Iron Man Armor built from piecemeal scraps and spare parts in the cave in Afghanistan; as well as a full size animatronic 10 foot tall and 300 pound monstrosity that was the Iron Monger suit. This massive suit needed no less than 5 live operators to just manipulate a single arm.

RDJ in CGI Suit and Final Film Version Side by Side Comparison

The refined versions of the Iron Man suit were derived from actual comic book Iron Man armor designs by noted artist Adi Granov whose work was credited for revitalizing interest by fans in the Armored Avenger in the 2000s. His design work in particular was noted for being much more mechanical appearing than previous Iron Man Armors yet maintained a high level of streamlined bleeding edge futuristic technology. Granov was tapped to a design and concept artist for the 2008 film as well, lending his ideas and design work for the various suits and how they should move.

Although special effects tried to use a practical Iron Man suit for most of the scenes; it was so uncomfortable for the actor and stuntmen; that Robert Downey, Jr. began using a motion capture suit with a helmet, gloves, and chest piece mock-ups although they did also use practical suits for close up shots as well.

Additional/Alternate Movie Taglines

• Heroes aren't born. They're built.
• Get ready for a different breed of heavy metal hero.

Reception

Iron Man premiered on April 14, 2008 at the Greater Union Theater in Sydney, Australia and was subsequently released in the international markets on April 30. It was released in the United States on May 2 of that year respectively alongside Made of Honor; Fugitive Pieces; Redbelt; and Son of Rambow. It debuted in 4,105 theaters nationwide and earned a total gross of $98,618,668 in its opening weekend, skyrocketing to the number one slot of most popular movies as well as jumping to the top ranks of the most popular superhero premiere films; lagging behind the 2002 Spider-Man film at the time of its release.

It successfully fended off challenges by other film premieres that following weekend including What Happens in Vegas and Speed Racer and continued to hold onto its highly contested 1st ranking spot.

It could not hold onto its top rank for its third weekend though, as it was displaced by the premiere of Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian which caused it to slip to the 2nd slot. Iron Man would continue to steadily fall in the rankings over the next few weeks before tumbling out of the Top 10 by its ninth weekend. Iron Man managed to hold a position in the ranks of the Top 20 movies for the next successive weeks before it completed its 22-week box office run as the 48th most popular movie.

Overall, it earned a total gross figure of $318,604,126 domestically with a total of $266,762,121 in the foreign markets for a combined worldwide gross of $585,366,247. Iron Man was the third highest grossing film of 2008; being eclipsed by Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and The Dark Knight.

Iron Man received overwhelmingly positive reviews and praise for its special effects, action sequences, and in particular its primary actor, Robert Downey, Jr. for his performance as Tony Stark/Iron Man. The Rotten Tomatoes website gave is a solid 94% "Fresh" Rating with MetaCritic scored it "79 out of 100" with generally favorable reviews. Noted film critic, Robert Ebert praised Downey's irreverent charm in particular as "powering the lift-off separating this from most other superheroes movies" and gave it 4 out of 4 stars.

Downey received a number of nominations for his performance as Tony Stark and ultimately won a Saturn Award and IFTA (Irish Film and Television Award) with Jon Favreau also winning the Saturn Award for Best Director. The film received a Scream Award and a Golden Schmoe for Best Science Fiction Movie of the Year; a Sierra Award for Best Visual Effects; and two Taurus World Stunt Awards. It also received a second Golden Schmoe as "The Biggest Surprise of the Year".

The huge success and popularity of the film is credited with launching the Marvel Cinematic Universe Franchise or the MCU which has since emerged as the highest grossing film franchise of all time with Iron Man becoming retroactively considered as the first film of their "Phase One" Series as they release their films collectively under groups. Robert Downey Jr. would frequently reprise his iconic role as Tony Stark/Iron Man throughout a number of film projects in the MCU in both cameo and starring roles; including two direct sequels to this film; Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3.

Trivia

• Actor Sam Rockwell was a serious contender for the role of Tony Stark/Iron Man. His performance was so well liked that the director, Jon Favreau would go on to ask him to portray Justin Hammer in the Iron Man 2 sequel. In addition, various other actors such as Nicolas Cage, Hugh Jackman, Tom Cruise, and Leonardo DiCaprio were also seriously considered for the part before Robert Downey, Jr. was cast. Favreau admitted that Downey was not the studios' first or even second choice for the part due to his rather long history of drugs and alcohol abuse and behavior that resulted in several projects and roles failing because of this and was considered an "extreme risk".

• Although the basic story, casting, and action sequences were all planned out by the time that shooting for Iron Man began; very little of the actual script had actually been written which forced the cast to ad-lib and improvise for much of the film. In fact, Robert Downey Jr. improvised almost all of his lines on the spot which he enjoyed as it allowed him immense creativity in his portrayal of Tony Stark; often having multiple takes in scenes in which he would add. delete, and improvise his entire dialogue. Gwyneth Paltrow on the other hand found it incredibly difficult as Downey frequently changed entire sections of his speech from take to take which left her groping for a suitable response to his lines. Jeff Bridges admitted that he was very nervous at first as he tended to memorize his entire lines for every scene but after a while; he found it actually fun by thinking as the film as a "two hundred million dollar student film".

• The Nick Fury cameo scene after the post end credits were a huge secret and was filmed with a skeleton crew to maintain secrecy. However rumors leaked and Kevin Feige went so far as to have the scene removed from all of the preview prints to hide it. Samuel L. Jackson actually made several end credits scenes with varying dialogue including one that mentions, "as if gamma accidents, radioactive bugs and assorted mutants weren't enough," which was meant to tease the existence of the Hulk, Spider-Man, and the X-Men in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, this particular dialogue was cut as at the time the rights to those characters were held by Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures, and 20th Century Fox separately and thus were barred from appearing in the MCU at that time.

Associated Pages

Objects

• Arc Reactor

Weapons

• Jericho Missile
• Iron Man Armor
• Iron Monger Armor
• Sonic Taser

Teams & Groups

• S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Stark Industries
• The Ten Rings
• US Air Force

Locations

• Afghanistan
• Gulmira, Afghanistan
• Las Vegas, Nevada
• Malibu, California
• United States

External Links

IMDb

Trailer

Iron Man Official Trailer 1 (2008) HD