FlawlessVictory
09-11-2008, 10:46 PM
Could IRON MAN 2 be in 3D?
9/11/2008
Posted by Frosty (frosty@collider.com)
Just a few minutes ago, I finished a mini press conference with Stan Lee and Jon Favreau. Stan went first, and then we got Jon…each was about an hour. They were both promoting the upcoming “Iron Man” DVD/Blu-ray.
Anyway, while I’ll have a lot more in the next day or two, the highlight was Jon saying he’d love to do Iron Man 2 in 3D! He also called the IMAX “Dark Knight” footage a game changer and he said he’d love to shoot part of “Iron Man 2” in IMAX. Regarding the 3D, he said it’s all about the cost, but if they can make it happen he’d like to do it. He talked about getting to see the armor in 3D and how cool it would be.
While he was a bit cagey about specifics with “Iron Man 2,” he did mention Mandarin a lot and he said we can expect a lot more surprises in the sequel in terms of other comic book characters.
He also said he hopes to keep the story relatively simple in the sequel, but he hopes to raise the emotional and technical side of the story. Meaning, he wants the stakes to be raised for all the characters, but he’s not going to make it hard for a new audience to understand the story or make it so complicated that you have to work to follow it. He actually mentioned “The Dark Knight” and said they can keep that side of the playground. He wants to keep “Iron Man” light and fun.
He did talk about War Machine and mentioned Terrance Howard and his busy schedule. I think he’s definitely going to put on the armor in the sequel….but that’s just my vibe from the way he talked about it.
With the script still being worked on and a budget still up in the air, everything is subject to change. But the concept of “Iron Man 2” being in 3D sounds very cool. More very soon from the press day. I’ll try and get the audio up later today….
Update – while I don’t yet have the time to transcribe exactly what Jon said, I do have the audio for you to listen to right now. If you click here (http://media.collider.com/collider_audio/Iron_Man_Audio_Interviews_Set_Visit/jon_favreau_iron_man_dvd_press_interview_-_collider.com.mp3), you’ll get the entire interview, which is about 1 hour. Or you can click here (http://media.collider.com/collider_audio/Iron_Man_Audio_Interviews_Set_Visit/jon_favreau_iron_man_dvd_press_interview_part_2_-_last_5_min_-_collider.com.mp3) and listen to the last 5 minutes where I asked Jon about the budget for the sequel and the IMAX question. This is the part where he ***** slaps 20th Century Fox and the way they make sequels and talks about 3D.http://www.collider.com/entertainment/news/article.asp/aid/9129/tcid/1
Massive Iron Man Update
Favreau joins IGN for lunch and reveals the latest details.
by Christopher Monfette
September 11, 2008 - IGN and a small number of journalists were able to sit down with writer/director and Iron Man mastermind Jon Favreau this afternoon for a lengthy and in-depth discussion on the upcoming sequel. The conversation was packed with fresh Iron Man news, including Favreau's thoughts on War Machine, the Mandarin and the art of the comic-book sequel.
On Iron Man's success…
FAVREAU: I was surprised by everything. I was surprised that the reviews were so strong, that it made so much money. I was surprised that Dark Knight had better reviews and made so much more money. On the one hand, it was a really unexpected, serendipitous summer. Oddly, when Dark Knight finally came out and was received the way it was, it was such a relief for me because I really felt like we went from nobody expecting anything to people starting to expect something…First, it was, "Who the hell cares about Marvel's b-level heroes," to Comic-Con where began building momentum, to this fever pitch where we were afraid that we'd disappoint and fail to meet expectations. And then Dark Knight comes in and makes history and all of a sudden, we felt the relief of that spotlight moving off of us from the guard tower. And now we have two years to lay low and work on the movie.
On what changed the tide of the superhero movie…
FAVREAU: I think 9/11. I think that was a game changer. I think people were looking for emotional simplicity, for escapism. There were superhero movies before Spider-Man, but Spider-Man hit at just the right time. It was the first way that we could get to those emotions. You couldn't say anything about politics, about war, but you put somebody in a costume and say, "This is the good guy, this is the bad guy," and you set that in a fantasy world or the Marvel universe, all of a sudden you allow people and kids and adults to experience those emotions. They're dealing with real emotions in an escapist way. And that's become more complex as we've become more comfortable seven years later, and you can have a movie like Dark Knight that shows people those things. There's a line you can't cross, but that line's moving. But I'm glad that I was able to hit the crest of the genre and I feel safe now that we have a built in audience. But you wonder how that is going to change. Whoever gets voted in, I think there's going to be an incredible transformation. I don't know what it's going to be, how the economy will affect that, or what the politics will look like. But change is coming, regardless, within our political system and our culture. And I wonder, as a moviemaker, how that's going to effect audiences and what the national attitude is. It's not something that turns on a dime.
On the script for Iron Man 2…
FAVREAU: The writing is coming along quite well. We've got Justin Theroux, who did Tropic Thunder. He echoes Downey's tastes a lot. He's an actor. He brings a real sense of fun. He's never worked in the genre before, so he has that great newcommer's enthusiasm. Then it's about, here are the books. We're breaking the story and pages are coming out, but it's more of a conversation than actual writing…We're looking – not so much for story, but for tone – at the Matt Fraction stuff. That series seems to be informed as much by our movie as by what happened with Iron Man before. It's informed by current events. I'm very impressed by what he's written.
On storytelling in comic-book films…
FAVREAU: There's always a sense of "let's save something for another movie." But I think there's a way to wade into it. In Spider-Man, he seems to be dealing with different issues in each film because they're very modular. But we want to stretch our movie out like three chapters of the same story… These are smart audiences now with the capacity to understand long-form, complex storytelling, and you're starting to see it more in TV and videogames. Movies are kind of what they are. It's like a rock and roll song – you've got your thing, your bridge and your end. So how do you keep making rock and roll songs, but also do the White Album? How do you put it all together with other movies and make it something that's a larger experience for people who are paying attention, but yet not so complex that if you're not paying attention you're going to not have fun? I'm a pretty smart audience member and I just don't have that attention span, so I want to figure out if I can get a better version of that while still upping the ante of what you're putting on the screen and the humor and the dialogue.
On mastering the suit…
FAVREAU: Truth be told, we were being very ambitious about what we were going to accomplish with the money we had. So we shot as much practical as we can, which I'm on board for. The Stan Winston suit and the way it was designed – let's see what we can accomplish. The Mark I – we got a lot accomplished with. By the time we got to the Mark II, we were doing a lot of flying and when we got into the stuff of him fighting in the real suit, it just looked terrible. Like Power Rangers. There was always money for the real suit to be replaced. The problem is that even though you're using a CG suit, the plates and the action are still based on what somebody was doing on the ground. So it's a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it's a bummer because we would have like to have had more of the flying. And we did add the one sequence where they went up into space, but it didn't sing as well as it could have had we always planned it that way. It left a lot of room to improve upon for next time. How do you out-do yourself? It's so nice to have succeeded from humble beginnings. And I've learned a lot more and I've found a way to be smart and clever about the humor of the action. At a certain point, it's just people fighting. And you've gotta do a good job of it. From Blade to Fantastic Four, it's basically the same thing. And if you remove it, it's no longer a superhero movie.
On the logistics of a star-studded, character-heavy Avengers film…
FAVREAU: That's the danger, isn't it? Forget about creatively. Just from a perspective of finances. But somehow they made Ocean's Eleven, so there are certainly business models. And I think it has more to do about whether people are enthusiastic about being in a movie that they'll be proud of. The truth is that most stars of that level would love to be in a movie where they're not everyday on the call sheet…
On the quality of comic-book sequels…
FAVREAU: This next one is gonna be good. Creatively, I've got a lot of room; I know everybody; people can't wait to see it. I'm definitely a part of the audience. If it's good, I'm there. But there's a pattern that the sequels are better than the first ones – X-Men 2, Spider-Man 2, Dark Knight. When you get into three's, it gets weird. Very hit or miss. And four's, well…That's harder. But I don't really have to go there yet. They trust me as a director. The studio needs this; they're just as excited as I am. Everybody's waiting to see what we do next…Swingers was fun, but it came and went. Elf was fun, but it came and went. And if you made sequels to those, it'd feel like double-dipping. It always gets worse. But with this, it can get better because it's meant to be a franchise. And as far as three goes, then it gets harder because you're scared. And then they start offering you a lot of dough.
It's not like I don't have enough money, and I'm not competitive enough to say, "Oh, I want a plane like him." I just want to make sure my family stays together; that I don't miss a year of my kid's life. And that becomes the challenge. You want to do all this stuff. You lived on a futon and ate Ramen noodles for years so that you could have these opportunities, and now you're gonna say "no" to them? But if you say "yes," you risk things that you've grown to love as well – your wife, your kids. So with the third one, you say, "OK, what are they asking of me? What is there left to say? What am I doing this for?" But what's nice about this is that with The Avengers, you'll have other characters coming in and going out, and that's going to change the dynamic. There will be more of a sense of fun; we'll get more playful. But yes, I'd love to work for 10 years on one successful, L.A.-based franchise with people I like and connect with, telling stories that I think have some social and emotional resonance, but aren't so heavy-handed that it's no longer fun. Plus, I get to play around with all the new toys and CG and all the stuff I read about in Starlog.
On the use of technology…
FAVREAU: They've done a lot with IMAX. I was sitting next to James Cameron at a screening of Dark Knight and that first shot comes out – that helicopter shot of the city – and we both went, "Wow!". Visually, there's always something interesting… I'd love to do something in IMAX with this next one. Potentially even in 3-D, especially for the HUD.
On the War Machine…
FAVREAU: I want to do it. We're drawing War Machine; we're figuring it out; we're talking to Terrence. I think Terrence was smaller in the first movie than we anticipated, but it does set the table very well for this character. Again, you look for ways to up the ante. It's tough to do that on the villain side without going into strange territory. But what we can do is have a lot of fun with our family, our main characters…We'll see how that basic group of four people moves forward toward the inevitable Avengers, as well as the Mandarin and how largely he looms. But mostly from a perspective of tone.
On a bigger, better sequel…
FAVREAU: I don't want to make it too complicated with the plot. I don't want to ask people to follow something that I wouldn't be able to follow. There's emotional complexity that we'll find with the characters, but not plot complexity. I'm going to bring you up to speed and tell a fun story. But you do need to add complexity, and I'll add complexity emotionally, as far as the tech, as far as the look. If you're a fan, you'll see that the suit has changed. The HUD has changed. He's making improvements and innovations. What has happened since he said, "I am Iron Man?" We're going to find that out.
http://movies.ign.com/articles/909/909574p1.html
9/11/2008
Posted by Frosty (frosty@collider.com)
Just a few minutes ago, I finished a mini press conference with Stan Lee and Jon Favreau. Stan went first, and then we got Jon…each was about an hour. They were both promoting the upcoming “Iron Man” DVD/Blu-ray.
Anyway, while I’ll have a lot more in the next day or two, the highlight was Jon saying he’d love to do Iron Man 2 in 3D! He also called the IMAX “Dark Knight” footage a game changer and he said he’d love to shoot part of “Iron Man 2” in IMAX. Regarding the 3D, he said it’s all about the cost, but if they can make it happen he’d like to do it. He talked about getting to see the armor in 3D and how cool it would be.
While he was a bit cagey about specifics with “Iron Man 2,” he did mention Mandarin a lot and he said we can expect a lot more surprises in the sequel in terms of other comic book characters.
He also said he hopes to keep the story relatively simple in the sequel, but he hopes to raise the emotional and technical side of the story. Meaning, he wants the stakes to be raised for all the characters, but he’s not going to make it hard for a new audience to understand the story or make it so complicated that you have to work to follow it. He actually mentioned “The Dark Knight” and said they can keep that side of the playground. He wants to keep “Iron Man” light and fun.
He did talk about War Machine and mentioned Terrance Howard and his busy schedule. I think he’s definitely going to put on the armor in the sequel….but that’s just my vibe from the way he talked about it.
With the script still being worked on and a budget still up in the air, everything is subject to change. But the concept of “Iron Man 2” being in 3D sounds very cool. More very soon from the press day. I’ll try and get the audio up later today….
Update – while I don’t yet have the time to transcribe exactly what Jon said, I do have the audio for you to listen to right now. If you click here (http://media.collider.com/collider_audio/Iron_Man_Audio_Interviews_Set_Visit/jon_favreau_iron_man_dvd_press_interview_-_collider.com.mp3), you’ll get the entire interview, which is about 1 hour. Or you can click here (http://media.collider.com/collider_audio/Iron_Man_Audio_Interviews_Set_Visit/jon_favreau_iron_man_dvd_press_interview_part_2_-_last_5_min_-_collider.com.mp3) and listen to the last 5 minutes where I asked Jon about the budget for the sequel and the IMAX question. This is the part where he ***** slaps 20th Century Fox and the way they make sequels and talks about 3D.http://www.collider.com/entertainment/news/article.asp/aid/9129/tcid/1
Massive Iron Man Update
Favreau joins IGN for lunch and reveals the latest details.
by Christopher Monfette
September 11, 2008 - IGN and a small number of journalists were able to sit down with writer/director and Iron Man mastermind Jon Favreau this afternoon for a lengthy and in-depth discussion on the upcoming sequel. The conversation was packed with fresh Iron Man news, including Favreau's thoughts on War Machine, the Mandarin and the art of the comic-book sequel.
On Iron Man's success…
FAVREAU: I was surprised by everything. I was surprised that the reviews were so strong, that it made so much money. I was surprised that Dark Knight had better reviews and made so much more money. On the one hand, it was a really unexpected, serendipitous summer. Oddly, when Dark Knight finally came out and was received the way it was, it was such a relief for me because I really felt like we went from nobody expecting anything to people starting to expect something…First, it was, "Who the hell cares about Marvel's b-level heroes," to Comic-Con where began building momentum, to this fever pitch where we were afraid that we'd disappoint and fail to meet expectations. And then Dark Knight comes in and makes history and all of a sudden, we felt the relief of that spotlight moving off of us from the guard tower. And now we have two years to lay low and work on the movie.
On what changed the tide of the superhero movie…
FAVREAU: I think 9/11. I think that was a game changer. I think people were looking for emotional simplicity, for escapism. There were superhero movies before Spider-Man, but Spider-Man hit at just the right time. It was the first way that we could get to those emotions. You couldn't say anything about politics, about war, but you put somebody in a costume and say, "This is the good guy, this is the bad guy," and you set that in a fantasy world or the Marvel universe, all of a sudden you allow people and kids and adults to experience those emotions. They're dealing with real emotions in an escapist way. And that's become more complex as we've become more comfortable seven years later, and you can have a movie like Dark Knight that shows people those things. There's a line you can't cross, but that line's moving. But I'm glad that I was able to hit the crest of the genre and I feel safe now that we have a built in audience. But you wonder how that is going to change. Whoever gets voted in, I think there's going to be an incredible transformation. I don't know what it's going to be, how the economy will affect that, or what the politics will look like. But change is coming, regardless, within our political system and our culture. And I wonder, as a moviemaker, how that's going to effect audiences and what the national attitude is. It's not something that turns on a dime.
On the script for Iron Man 2…
FAVREAU: The writing is coming along quite well. We've got Justin Theroux, who did Tropic Thunder. He echoes Downey's tastes a lot. He's an actor. He brings a real sense of fun. He's never worked in the genre before, so he has that great newcommer's enthusiasm. Then it's about, here are the books. We're breaking the story and pages are coming out, but it's more of a conversation than actual writing…We're looking – not so much for story, but for tone – at the Matt Fraction stuff. That series seems to be informed as much by our movie as by what happened with Iron Man before. It's informed by current events. I'm very impressed by what he's written.
On storytelling in comic-book films…
FAVREAU: There's always a sense of "let's save something for another movie." But I think there's a way to wade into it. In Spider-Man, he seems to be dealing with different issues in each film because they're very modular. But we want to stretch our movie out like three chapters of the same story… These are smart audiences now with the capacity to understand long-form, complex storytelling, and you're starting to see it more in TV and videogames. Movies are kind of what they are. It's like a rock and roll song – you've got your thing, your bridge and your end. So how do you keep making rock and roll songs, but also do the White Album? How do you put it all together with other movies and make it something that's a larger experience for people who are paying attention, but yet not so complex that if you're not paying attention you're going to not have fun? I'm a pretty smart audience member and I just don't have that attention span, so I want to figure out if I can get a better version of that while still upping the ante of what you're putting on the screen and the humor and the dialogue.
On mastering the suit…
FAVREAU: Truth be told, we were being very ambitious about what we were going to accomplish with the money we had. So we shot as much practical as we can, which I'm on board for. The Stan Winston suit and the way it was designed – let's see what we can accomplish. The Mark I – we got a lot accomplished with. By the time we got to the Mark II, we were doing a lot of flying and when we got into the stuff of him fighting in the real suit, it just looked terrible. Like Power Rangers. There was always money for the real suit to be replaced. The problem is that even though you're using a CG suit, the plates and the action are still based on what somebody was doing on the ground. So it's a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it's a bummer because we would have like to have had more of the flying. And we did add the one sequence where they went up into space, but it didn't sing as well as it could have had we always planned it that way. It left a lot of room to improve upon for next time. How do you out-do yourself? It's so nice to have succeeded from humble beginnings. And I've learned a lot more and I've found a way to be smart and clever about the humor of the action. At a certain point, it's just people fighting. And you've gotta do a good job of it. From Blade to Fantastic Four, it's basically the same thing. And if you remove it, it's no longer a superhero movie.
On the logistics of a star-studded, character-heavy Avengers film…
FAVREAU: That's the danger, isn't it? Forget about creatively. Just from a perspective of finances. But somehow they made Ocean's Eleven, so there are certainly business models. And I think it has more to do about whether people are enthusiastic about being in a movie that they'll be proud of. The truth is that most stars of that level would love to be in a movie where they're not everyday on the call sheet…
On the quality of comic-book sequels…
FAVREAU: This next one is gonna be good. Creatively, I've got a lot of room; I know everybody; people can't wait to see it. I'm definitely a part of the audience. If it's good, I'm there. But there's a pattern that the sequels are better than the first ones – X-Men 2, Spider-Man 2, Dark Knight. When you get into three's, it gets weird. Very hit or miss. And four's, well…That's harder. But I don't really have to go there yet. They trust me as a director. The studio needs this; they're just as excited as I am. Everybody's waiting to see what we do next…Swingers was fun, but it came and went. Elf was fun, but it came and went. And if you made sequels to those, it'd feel like double-dipping. It always gets worse. But with this, it can get better because it's meant to be a franchise. And as far as three goes, then it gets harder because you're scared. And then they start offering you a lot of dough.
It's not like I don't have enough money, and I'm not competitive enough to say, "Oh, I want a plane like him." I just want to make sure my family stays together; that I don't miss a year of my kid's life. And that becomes the challenge. You want to do all this stuff. You lived on a futon and ate Ramen noodles for years so that you could have these opportunities, and now you're gonna say "no" to them? But if you say "yes," you risk things that you've grown to love as well – your wife, your kids. So with the third one, you say, "OK, what are they asking of me? What is there left to say? What am I doing this for?" But what's nice about this is that with The Avengers, you'll have other characters coming in and going out, and that's going to change the dynamic. There will be more of a sense of fun; we'll get more playful. But yes, I'd love to work for 10 years on one successful, L.A.-based franchise with people I like and connect with, telling stories that I think have some social and emotional resonance, but aren't so heavy-handed that it's no longer fun. Plus, I get to play around with all the new toys and CG and all the stuff I read about in Starlog.
On the use of technology…
FAVREAU: They've done a lot with IMAX. I was sitting next to James Cameron at a screening of Dark Knight and that first shot comes out – that helicopter shot of the city – and we both went, "Wow!". Visually, there's always something interesting… I'd love to do something in IMAX with this next one. Potentially even in 3-D, especially for the HUD.
On the War Machine…
FAVREAU: I want to do it. We're drawing War Machine; we're figuring it out; we're talking to Terrence. I think Terrence was smaller in the first movie than we anticipated, but it does set the table very well for this character. Again, you look for ways to up the ante. It's tough to do that on the villain side without going into strange territory. But what we can do is have a lot of fun with our family, our main characters…We'll see how that basic group of four people moves forward toward the inevitable Avengers, as well as the Mandarin and how largely he looms. But mostly from a perspective of tone.
On a bigger, better sequel…
FAVREAU: I don't want to make it too complicated with the plot. I don't want to ask people to follow something that I wouldn't be able to follow. There's emotional complexity that we'll find with the characters, but not plot complexity. I'm going to bring you up to speed and tell a fun story. But you do need to add complexity, and I'll add complexity emotionally, as far as the tech, as far as the look. If you're a fan, you'll see that the suit has changed. The HUD has changed. He's making improvements and innovations. What has happened since he said, "I am Iron Man?" We're going to find that out.
http://movies.ign.com/articles/909/909574p1.html