After blowiing everybody´s minds inside Hall-H last week at the Comic-Con International at San Diego, Jon talked about what it has been like working on the sequel from the armored Avenger.. and more!
Seems like different interviews are circulating around the web, so new cool information is being known about this exciting new Comic Book Movie era we are living in, and looking for in the next years!
(Here is the full interview:)
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Q: You rocked Hall H. What was that like?
Jon: Boy, it was scary, coming in. That's the problem. Remember that Bugs Bunny episode where Daffy Duck drinks the gasoline, lights himself on fire, it blows up and everybody claps? It's like, what do you do for an encore? Last time around, we put it all out there because we had a lot to prove.
Q: Because you were the underdog last year?
Jon: We were the underdog. We were on Thursday at the Paramount panel, where everybody was waiting to see Indiana Jones and Star Trek, and they just stuck us in there. We were the runt and we had to fight to get the attention. This year, it was ridiculous. To emerge as one that was talked about, we knew we had to show a lot of footage. This time, if you look at what other films with established franchises do, they tend to just come, do a little soft-pedal at the event and just show up as a sign of respect, but don't do too much. Maybe they give away a shirt, or something. Every time that I come here, I want to bring what people expect.
Q: How did you avoid the trap of sequels adding too many villains and characters?
Jon: Well, we had to walk a fine line. I think you're good for number two. Two seems to be the charm because you've got your origin story out of the way. You can add some complexity to it and you have room to introduce characters because you don't have to tell the origin story. When you get to number three, you can get hide-bound. You're like a beached whale because you have so much that you collapse under the weight of the complexity that you've created. We looked at the successful sequels that we liked. I'm not talking about Two Towers or films that are based on novels, like Harry Potter. I'm talking about true sequels. The two that me and Kevin Feige liked the most were The Wrath of Kahn and The Empire Strikes Back. Those were the two that we said, "They did it right. Now, let's look at what they did right."
There were so many others that didn't feel as good as the first, but for those two, what we found was that it really gave room to explore the characters, and the villain plotlines were very simple, but the stakes were very high. The less you get bogged down in complexity, the more you can really let the audience enjoy what they really like, which are the relationships. It's putting yourself in the seat of the audience and saying, "What do they want to see more of?," and then you want to go bigger."You go from Alien to Aliens, and you want to show them the characters that they've invested in and change those dynamics by introducing new characters. Don't just add to the action, but throw the relationships into a little bit of a curve ball.
Q: Do you also have the responsibility to set up part of The Avengers too?
Jon: Yeah. That's fun. I think it's inevitable. The Avengers might be the thing that helps rescue us from the inevitable sequel slump that you get into because you're throwing everything on its ear. It might be a failed experiment, or it might be something wonderful, but it allows you to add complexity, in an organic way, where you're culminating with something bigger, as opposed to trying to play out and not repeat the same story, over and over again.
Q: How do you avoid overloading on villain origin stories?
Jon: What you do is reveal layers of what the larger villain is. We're not feeling any pressure, right now, to rush to the whole Mandarin sub-throughline.
Q: But, that's still intact?
Jon: It's still intact. We're consistent with it. We know where it's going, but I think audiences are pretty sophisticated. I watched the whole first season of Lost and Heroes, not having to know everything about what was going on, but still felt there was a consistency to those worlds. So, in this case, with Mickey, we definitely did want to have an origin story because we wanted an origin story to shadow and mirror Tony. He's introduced this technology into the world, so how does that affect the world?
We're dealing with an arms race. That's what Iron Man has always been. The thing about an arms race is that, when you stop, the world doesn't. You have windows of opportunity to change the world in good ways while all the bad forces are paralyzed, and what happens when those other superpowers emerge? It changes your tactics. Iron Man is dealing with as much as he can, based on saying, "I am Iron Man." And, what that has meant is to keep the world at bay with that new technology and who he was, and how that changes now with the emergence of Mickey.
Q: How much pressure was on you to deliver the goods?
Jon: I didn't feel any pressure. Maybe I'm oblivious, but the only pressure I really felt was the people in Hall H, who are the fans. Unfortunately, the way sequels work is that they market them and sell them based on the first one. If you have a successful film, they sell your second film based on the first one. So, commercially, you have a safety net. The trick is, as a filmmaker, and somebody who loves the movies that I make and the source material, I don't want to fall into that trap, so the pressure is completely self-imposed.
I want people to like this movie as much, if not better, than the first one. That's the game of chicken I'm playing, but there's a safety net knowing people will check it out. People with other movies stay away from our weekends. It's going to get marketed well. It's going to properly get its shot to do business. But, the success of the first one, that I really appreciated, wasn't just that people went to see it, but that people were charmed by it. We wanted to make a charming film that didn't lose track of what we did, the first time around, and that's my job. We brought in new cast members that were consistent. It's about bringing an ensemble that can be stewards of their character because we change stuff. Writing on these movies is something that's a living, breathing thing, and I want to give us the freedom so that, if we discover something in one scene, we can change a scene in the next act to support that.
Q: Why the new writer?
Jon: Well, I love the first two sets of writers that I had worked with. Robert had a very good relationship with Justin. We found somebody who can help bring a voice to the character. But, the writing is such a collaborative process. It's not like when I wrote Swingers, we shot Swingers. This is like, "Here's the basic story. Here's the basic scenes. Here's the basic structure. Here are the basic set pieces. Let's start drawing and storyboarding these moments. Now, how do we connect all of this." The last step is the actual writing of it. But, I have the whole story, in my head, by the time the script actually emerges.
Q: Will you have a story credit?
Jon: It's part of directing. As a writer, I think it's unfair because of the amount of work that the writers do. I think that everybody has their role, but everybody overlaps. Justin Theroux shot some footage for me. Robert wrote a lot of his own stuff and was involved with the story process, from the beginning. And, everybody improvises.
Q: How fluid was it? Was the script locked?
Jon: They never are. We locked the script last week, when we shot the last scene.
Q: So, Justin was rewriting the whole time?
Jon: He was rewriting the whole time, and he shouldered a tremendous burden, in conforming to what our new ideas were and then changing it.
Q: What's the intensity factor with Robert and Mickey together?
Jon: Mickey and Robert didn't work together a lot, but Robert had really gone out of his way to get Mickey involved. They were on the tour together for the awards season, last year. They kept popping up at the same events because they were both nominated. Mickey was definitely very appreciative that Robert fought so hard to get him, as did I. So, off camera, there was a lot of mutual respect and appreciation. But, of course, on camera, they're two strong forces that definitely squared off against one another.
Q: What did Mickey and Scarlett add to the game?
Jon: Well, Scarlett not only works us towards The Avengers, but also changed the dynamic between Robert and Gwyneth. One of the other traps you don't want to fall into is just repeating the same dynamics and turn it into Hart to Hart. You don't want it to be Moonlighting. You don't want to have the same thing, over and over again. It's not a television series, but I don't know that you would like it for these guys. It's a movie, so you have to change things and you have to create a beginning, middle and end, so that it doesn't just feel like an episode in a series of films. So, by introducing Scarlett, that changes their dynamic. Scarlett appears in their life and has just a tremendous presence.
With Mickey Rourke, I didn't want to just have two guys in robot suits, hitting each other again. I wanted to have a different type of villain that used the same technology, and existed within the same framework and rules of our world, but that was going to present not just a challenge physically, but also in how dark he was and how his fate and Tony's fate are connected.
Q: How do you have time to act, along with directing these films?
Jon: I pushed it a little too hard this time. I was shooting I Love You, Man the week this movie came out. It was very weird to be on the phone with Jeffrey Katzenberg, getting ready to be on the set of a movie, sitting in a small trailer as a supporting player on a low budget comedy. It was just a surreal experience.
Then, I was writing Couples Retreat. I was supposed to direct that. Vince had the idea, he was producing it, we were both going to star in it and I was going to direct, but because the release date of Iron Man was coming so fast, I couldn't. I worked on the script for about a year, had to put it down during the strike, and then came back to it.
Then, I had to start working on Iron Man, so Vince re-wrote it and Peter Billingsley, who's been a collaborator with us, and he directed it. I got to carve out the time in the schedule to act in it, but I just went from project to project to project, as did Robert, and it's a little overwhelming.
Q: The film looks hilarious.
Jon: I hope so. I haven't seen it yet. It was very funny on the set, so hopefully it'll work out well.
Q: Is the thought that The Avengers will be the third Iron Man, or will there be an Iron Man 3?
Jon: There will be an Iron Man 3. Here's how I know: When they made the option deals, they included Iron Man 3, so I know they're planning on a 3. They've announced that The Avengers is next, but they pushed back The Avengers once, which I thought was encouraging.
Q: Does that give you more time to breathe?
Jon: It does. And, my involvement has yet to be determined on that project. Remember, you have to take into account what Thor is, and you don't know that until the film's locked. You're not going to know about Thor for two years. And, they haven't even started prepping Captain America yet. So, there's a lot of discovery that has to take place before you can understand what The Avengers really is.
Q: What's your place in that process?
Jon: We talk about it. Iron Man is their flagship franchise, right now. It's the one that's informing the others the most, so I feel like I'm chopping my way through the jungle and The Avengers will eventually be an oasis, somewhere down the line. I'm pretty much hands-on with the day-to-day on Iron Man and what I'm discovering now will inform the next one