'Iron Man': Summer's first Marvel?

Image credit: Zade Rosenthal

HOWARD'S END Robert Downey Jr. and the actor in Iron Man

Iron Man might not be as familiar to mainstream audiences as Batman — he may even lack the ubiquity of the thunderous Black Sabbath rock song of the same name (everybody now: ''I. Am. IRON MAN!'') — but he's been a fixture of Marvel's pulp fiction since 1963. His origin story is very much a thing of its time: Tony Stark, weapons designer, anticommunist zealot, and hard-partying celebrity capitalist, goes to war-torn Vietnam to check out his technology in action. He gets gravely wounded and captured but MacGyvers together a suit of armor designed to kick Vietcong ass. (The movie substitutes Afghanistan for Vietnam.) Once back in the States, Stark commits to battling tyrannical evildoers everywhere. Call him the original Scud Stud. ''Stark is something of a weirdo compared to other superheroes,'' Downey says. ''Whereas most of them are dealing with some extraordinary transformation, he's very self-indulgent, a womanizer, and politically unsound by most people's standards. And yet, my understanding is that Iron Man got more [female] fan mail back in the day than any other Marvel character.''

Iron Man's had a fair number of Hollywood fans, too, although their admiration hasn't done much to make him a movie star. Since the mid-1990s, several studios have attempted to develop an Iron Man flick, attracting the interest of stars Tom Cruise and Nicolas Cage. But in 2005, after New Line failed to mount a version with director Nick Cassavetes (The Notebook), Iron Man's rights reverted to Marvel. Flush with mini-major aspirations — plus $525 million in start-up cash from Merrill Lynch and a 10-picture distribution deal with Paramount — Marvel moved to put Iron Man into production, recruiting Jon Favreau to steer the adaptation. The Swingers star-turned-director seized the opportunity, he says, because he was drawn to Iron Man's point of difference: Tony Stark's not a teenager (e.g., Spider-Man) but an adult, changing his ways and becoming a superhero. ''I'm in my 40s myself now, so it's nice to be dealing with a cast — and a character — that I can see eye to eye with,'' Favreau says. To bring Stark into the 21st century, Favreau updated the story's geopolitical context and softened the comic book's jingoism by injecting Stark with ''What have I wrought?'' angst.

Next came Downey, who lobbied for the role, whipping his body into action-hero shape and even agreeing to do a screen test. ''In my offscreen life, I'm totally into skydiving, martial arts, military history, but that doesn't jibe with my onscreen persona,'' he says. Ironically, the offscreen stuff that Downey is famous for — substance abuse, jail, rehab — actually helped him get the job. ''It certainly factored in,'' Favreau says. ''Stark is a guy who has lived life, and who has a change of heart about how he views himself, the world, and his place in it. To go with a lead that's too young — which you're often coerced to do — just wouldn't work.'' Still, Marvel Studios president Feige says Downey wasn't an easy sell to his superiors. ''I had to negotiate a minefield of questions when I made that pitch,'' Feige says, laughing. But Downey's recent track record of clean living and steady, impressive work (16 films in five years) allayed concerns. ''His past was ultimately a nonissue,'' Feige says.

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