Just got word this is no longer a secret so prepare for some Braggy McBraggy. But as Bendy has written on his board this morning, we can finally talk about one of the coolest things to happen in our careers. Completely out of the blue, when the script was still in the early stages, we got a call from Jon Faverau to fly out to the beginnings of what would be the Iron Man set and do a little script consultancy work...
The brian-trust was all people involved in Iron Man to some extent at the time and hand-picked by Fav. This was me (because ULTIMATE Tony was a big influence on the film), BB, Joe Q, Tom Brevoort, Axel Alonso and Ultimates editor Ralph Macchio. We signed an official secrets thing after reading the script (which I swear I somehow managed not to ever tell anyone about) and got to work on this little baby over a couple of days. It was genuinely thrilling and we not only got a look around the caves which we were being built out there in the California desert, but also got to see some of the early ILM test stuff (a lot of which never made it to the finished movie).
That said, the most exciting part of the trip was rolling up our sleeves and getting into the plot. As Bendy said, Faverau didn't get us out there to just high-five the guy. He wanted us to be brutal and honest and I have to say I almost crossed the line when I talked 'em out of The Mandarin, who was in the original draft, and there was a terrible silence in the room for about ten seconds until Fav agreed and we all got talking about beefing up the Obadiah Stane/ Iron Monger thing (originally planned for the sequel). The whole crew were gracious, very respectful of Marvel East's input and-- best part-- paid us for our troubles. I've known for about sixteen months how great this movie was going to be and it was so thrilling to see the whole thing come to life up there at the London Premiere last week.
Special note: I saw the Bendy-written Ultimate Nick Fury scene at the end of the movie yesterday. We had to wait a full ten minutes for the credits to roll and my family and I were literally the last people in the cinema. But it was so bloody great and even in that short scene BB managed to drop a few little things that gave me chills... even just hearing Nick use the word "part of a whole new universe". It was top notch and the whole movie is a textbook example of how a comic-book movie should be done. This plus Hulk plus Thor plus Cap plus the upcoming Avengers movie makes me feel very, very confident about the whole superhero boom lasting at least another five years. Good times!
PS Funny Robert Downey Jr story I haven't been able to tell anyone since the trip: The guys were staying in LA an extra day, but I was heading back to Scotland after the meeting. This meant they were all in one people-carrier and I was in another (still to arrive) which was taking me to the airport. So I was standing around for about 45 minutes and talking to Kevin Feige's right hand man for a minute in this little office in the middle of nowhere when we heard someone yell "Where is the American pig Jon Faverau? Tell him I have come for him!" and we looked around to see a man with sunglasses, a scarf and what I'm presuming now was a fake AK-47 striding through the corridor on his own. There was only a couple of people around and we both ducked into an office as this guy went past. The right hand man shouted over to a secretary, asking who this was, but she had no idea. Two minutes later when my car came I saw the gun-man unmasked and it was Downey Jr standing laughing with Faverau and pointing the gun into his head as my car drove away. Yes, my life is absolutely ****ing mental some days...
