May 14, 2012
Jon Favreau recently sat down with THR to talk about his big plans for Iron Man 3, and his thoughts on Joss Whedon’s work on The Avengers. Check out his plans for Tony Stark and continuity after the jump!
The Hollywood Reporter: I’ve got to congratulate you on the success of The Avengers.
Jon Favreau: Yeah, how do you like that? Turned out really well. Look, it was something we always planned for, and hoped for, but anything could have gone wrong and it took a lot of things to go right. First and foremost, Joss, to be able to pull together, four different characters based on four different sets of films, that shared a lot tonally and they shared some cast-wise, but he had to pull all those things together and make it work, it’s a very high degree of difficulty for him. But we had done a lot of setup in Iron Man 2 and even in Iron Man 1, we were hoping that it would come to this. I don’t think it became a reality until the last few years, but we were definitely planning for it. But it took a lot of people to pass the baton well, and each director that had been involved with the franchises did their part, but it took Joss to really seal the deal, and clearly it worked out, because the moment seems to continue going.
THR: So you’re producing Iron Man 3. That’s filming soon? What’s the status?
Favreau: Yeah, down in Wilmington, it’s starting to shoot in a couple weeks. I was just talking to Shane Black and Downey and look, I think it’s a really smart way to go. AfterAvengers, you want to start with something really bold and inspired, and if you’ve ever seen Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang you’ve seen that when Downey and Shane get together, interesting and unexpected things happen, and I’m happy to see that it’s taking a bit of a tonal shift from The Avengers and it’s going to be something completely different and exciting, and I’m happy to be a part of it.
THR: What kind of tonal shift? Darker?
Favreau: No, just a little bit more offbeat, I’d say. Shane and Robert definitely have an original point of view and an original take on the character, and I think it delves deeper into what makes Tony Stark tick, and plays on the unexpected original unpredictable quality of the character that I think fans gravitate to.
When you look at at these films, I don’t think people take into consideration the kind of planning that goes in to keeping the characters consistent. If we really think about it, the Iron Man movies definitely set the stage for thebig box office machine that The Avengers turned out to be.
