Iron Man 2 Junket: Jon Favreau

Of all of the participants in Friday's official press junket for Iron Man 2, director Jon Favreau was the most enthusiastic, eager to answer any question thrown his way, and even some intended for the others. His enthusiasm for the movie and for his performers came across as natural and genuine and you could tell that he was really proud of what they had created.

When asked if there was more pressure to make the sequel a hit after the success of the first movie, Favreau said that he was under pressure on both productions, but different kinds of pressure.

"For me, it wasn't the same pressure that you're used to feeling, especially coming out with smaller movies where you're throwing a party and you don't know if people are going to show up. Here, we knew people were going to show up and you just want to make sure everybody who showed up had a good time and this was as fun or even more fun than the last party. So, different kind of pressure."

Favreau elaborated on how, unlike similar large productions from major movie studios, the actors working on Iron Man 2 were given a lot of leeway within each scene to change it to fit their own individual styles of acting and how they felt their characters would react.

"The story is very well fleshed out, the story. But, the actual—what has to happen in each scene we understand. We leave a lot of room within those scenes and try to do multiple cameras sometimes or stay up and re-write and Justin—he was doing multiple passes, sometimes double-digit passes on scenes because we learn things from each scene that we shoot. We try to shoot pretty much in order. And, what's nice about the actors you see up here is they're all very good stewards of their characters, emotionally. They're used to being in films where you don't have the safety net of all of the high-technology and the explosions. So, if they have an issue with something we're asking the character to do for the story, we discuss it and we figure out a way we can make it work for them as a performer and also for the story."

Because he often shoots multiple variations of scenes, Favreau said that many end up falling by the wayside. An example of this is the scene on the transport plane in which Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) kisses the Iron Man helmet and throws it off the plane. The scene was used in a trailer for the movie, but then ended up getting cut in favor of a different take.

"We had different versions of things that we tried. That was something that was a great image that we love and a scene that's going to be in the DVD. But, we had two different versions of it. And, because of the pacing and the way we reveal Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr., it felt really good to flow into the drop-down and reveal him for the first time on the stage."

In addition to cut scenes, Favreau said that there were be a lot of other extras included with the Iron Man 2 DVD.

"Well, we have—there's a lot of featurettes—we were running cameras behind the scenes all the time. We don't like to really show too much of it before the movie comes out to keep some surprises, but everything is very well documented and we have a, as you can see, a very interesting group of people. We're fans of these movies—Kevin [Feige, Marvel Studios president] and I are always swapping back and forth books and things about the movies that we grew up loving and so we document it very well. And so there's going to be pretty extensive featurettes and then commentary this time around and then deleted scenes that we thought would be interesting for people to see…we did overkill on this one."

Favreau said that he wasn't initially sure that Whiplash would be the main villain of the movie, but that he knew he wanted Mickey Rourke for the part once they had settled on the character.

"I met with Mickey at this hotel...and I brought him some artwork. And, Whiplash in the comic books is a guy wearing tights with a big plume, a big purple feather coming out of the top. That's not what we wanted. But, what's the tech version of that? And, so we were thinking of—we were concocting a version of a Russian, you know, thinking of Viggo [Mortensen] in Eastern Promises and tattoos and that could be a cool in. And, so it was going to be a Russian. And, then we're like, you know Marv [from Sin City] and The Wrestler—between those two, between the fanboys and the independent film community, he was back with a vengeance. And, it was like, 'My God,' there's a lot of people [in the movie], we're not going to have a tremendous amount of screen time, who's going to be able to be there, make an impression you feel like, 'This guy's in trouble'? And, so Mickey brought a lot of intensity to both those roles. We did some artwork and I met with him, sat down with him, and we talked about everything—it was before all of the awards things started to happen. We had a nice little connection…his talent is undeniable. And, so that conversation ended and Robert was on the road with him...and I think lobbying him every time they sat together."

For Favreau, one of the most important things to avoid when making a sequel in which new characters are introduced is a convoluted plot with too many storylines.

"The characters—the trick is to feather them in so they don't overwhelm the story and you don't suffer from villainitis. So, by having Justin Hammer [Sam Rockwell] and Mickey Rourke's character come together fairly early you really have two storylines that are weaving, you don’t have five separate storylines. And, the same thing with Scarlett as Black Widow working her way into Gwyneth and Robert's story. So, we really try to keep narrative flows going so it didn't get too convoluted. I lose track of that stuff...I don't always remember what happened in the last movie. Not for nothing, I like to watch the stuff blow up, but I don't want to have to do homework to go see a sequel...so we tried to keep that simple. And, Sam Rockwell is somebody that I had known and thought would work really well with Mickey. He doesn't get intimidated by talented performers and movies stars."