14 DAY TRIAL // “Iron Man 2 ” is already playing in select theaters around the world, pending worldwide release on May 7. Though early reviews say the sequel is something close to a critical disaster, hype continues to be as intense as before the limited release. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that the cast is featured in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly, where they go into specifics of how it was like to be part of the “Iron Man” phenomenon.
The issue comes out on newsstands at the end of this week, so fans will have to wait some more for all the deets straight from the stars. However, the online version of the magazine includes a few excerpts from the roundtable interview, and they offer an insight into the second film in the franchise – and how the stars involved in it feel about being a part of what will surely become the biggest movie of the year, at least in terms of box-office gross.
Robert Downey Jr., who plays Tony Stark / Iron Man, for instance, speaks a bit about his character and how he got to take his demons out in the light and place more emphasis on his darker side. “The last time around, Tony Stark was a significantly cooler version of me. In a way, my calling in this one was to bring more of myself into it and more of my character defects,” the actor says. He also shares his thoughts on how it was like to be on the same set as Mickey Rourke, who is villain Ivan Vanko in the film.
Scarlett Johansson, on the other hand, admits she initially felt a tinge of regret after she had accepted to play Black Widow when she saw the kind of suit she had to don for action scenes. In the end, though, she made peace with the idea and everything turned out just fine. Director Jon Favreau, in his turn, speaks of how happy he was and continues to be that Iron Man remains the underdog hero, which is something he strove for. “We’re kind of the class clown. I like that better than being the captain of the football team. It was a godsend when The Dark Knight came out and however good we were reviewed, they were reviewed better; however much we made, they made more,” Favreau explains.
As we also informed you the other day, though hype preceding “Iron Man 2” seemed to indicate the film would be at least as critically successful as the original film, early reviews indicate that the reality is far from that. The sequel has lost much of the appeal of the first film and is at times so tedious that it can actually be quite annoying, critics say. Still, even with these mixed to negative reviews, “Iron Man 2” is poised for great commercial success.