First Details on ‘Iron Man 3’: Grittier, More Realistic, Batman-Like Film

Jon Favreau is out of the “Iron Man” franchise but fans fearing that this may be the end of their favorite superhero, should rest assured. Shane Black will direct it and write the script – and he has big plans for the upcoming installment.

The third “Iron Man” film comes out in May 2013, which means there’s some pressure to get it into production. Black, it would seem, has every intention of making it different from the previous two installments.

In other words, he wants to do to the “Iron Man” franchise what Chris Nolan did to “Batman,” take the hero and put him in a world that is darker, more realistic and with more believable baddies, thus reinvent the film.

An unnamed but reliable source tells Ain’t It Cool News that Black was at the Omaha Film Festival just recently, where he dished out some details on the highly anticipated upcoming production.

For starters, Black is not the only one to have a say in the script: star Robert Downey Jr. will also be involved in some capacity in it.

Secondly, the movie studio was not happy with “Iron Man 2,” which had nothing to do with Favreau’s departure from the franchise but everything with the decision to have the third film head into a different direction.

“The studio was not happy with the direction Iron Man 2 took. Iron Man 3 will not be another ‘two men in iron suits fighting each other’ film. Instead, it will be more like a Tom Clancy-thriller, with Iron Man fighting real world villains,” says the source.

Last but not least, there will be no other superhero crossovers into the “Iron Man” universe, as some fans believed there would be.

“Iron Man 3 will be made after The Avengers and will not feature any other heroes from the Marvel Universe. Marvel is only doing crossover characters to lead up to The Avengers, and once that film is released, the plan is to go back to self-contained single-character stories,” says the spy.

Overall, fans are pleased with what they’re hearing, though there still are some who say Black shouldn’t strive too hard to make the third film different, lest he made it into something else.