Iron Man going back to basics

MANILA, Philippines - From Marvel Studios comes Iron Man 3, which continues the epic, big-screen adventures of the world’s favorite billionaire-inventor-superhero, Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man.

Marvel’s Iron Man 3 pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy’s hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: Does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?

Based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book Super Hero Iron Man, who first appeared on the pages of Tales of Suspense (No. 39) in 1963 and had his solo comic book debut with The Invincible Iron Man (No. 1) in May of 1968, Iron Man 3 returns Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, the iconic Superhero, along with Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, Don Cheadle as James “Rhodey” Rhodes, Guy Pearce as Aldrich Killian, Rebecca Hall as Maya Hansen, Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan and Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin.

Shane Black directs Marvel’s Iron Man 3 and the screenplay is by Drew Pearce and Shane Black.

After the Iron Man and Iron Man 2 box-office successes, the Iron Man character, once again reprised by Robert Downey Jr., was last seen in Marvel Studios critically acclaimed Marvel’s The Avengers, which set the all-time, domestic three-day weekend box-office record at $207.4M. The film went on to gross over $1.6B worldwide, becoming Disney’s highest-grossing global and domestic release of all time and marks the studio’s fifth film to gross more than $1B worldwide.

“The exciting thing about Iron Man 3, is that it’s not only the culmination of the first two films, but it’s also a follow-up to Marvel’s The Avengers,” says producer Kevin Feige. “It’s one of the first situations where you have a movie that is the sequel to two different films and in a way that liberates it to be more unique than anything that has come before it, which is what we’re most excited about.”

In the Marvel cinematic universe, all events that happen within each film have a direct influence and consequence in future films and franchises. For Tony, the events and encounters he faced in Marvel’s The Avengers may be behind him, but he is still working hard to balance the demands of his own personal life.

For the storyline of Marvel’s Iron Man 3, the filmmakers decided on a “back-to-basics” tone where they could explore what Tony would do if all of his money and toys were stripped away from him and he was forced to find a way back to being a Super Hero.

“Early on in the development, we talked about this notion of taking Tony Stark back to basics because we wanted to see him just use his brain,” explains executive producer Louis D’ Esposito. “You want to see what he can do when the odds are against him and it makes you wonder, ‘How is he going to get out of this one?’”

Executive producer Stephen Broussard explains the filmmakers’ decision to blend two different storylines together for the film. “There are two classic stories that have appeared in the Iron Man comics — one is older and the other is more modern,” explains Broussard.

(Opening nationwide on April 24 in IMAX 3D, Digital 3D and regular theatres, Iron Man 3 is presented by Marvel Studios in association with Paramount Pictures and DMG Entertainment.)