Jon Favreau has been given near consensus All Star status by comic book fans for his rendition of Iron Man. In a recent interview with LA Times, the filmmaker felt that one of the major keys to staying on top is the fact that everyone know who Tony Stark's alter ego is.
"The fact that our hero has no secret identity -- that opens up a lot of things for us creatively,"
"The superhero genre has been picked over pretty thoroughly with all the different titles, sequels, reboots. It's tough to keep it fresh and not do something that is derivative of something someone else has done. By taking a left turn at the end of the first film and making him a public figure, it opened it up to a whole lot of new possibilities. It goes beyond your standard secret identity/caped crusader model." When asked about the story line to the upcoming sequel:
"The rise of Ceaser -- there are mythic proportions to that. Other genres tackle that type of story on a regular basis but the superhero genre has not, up to this point. We were able to deal with the ramifications of fame and notoriety and high expectations." Publicity, both good and bad, is something Favreau's leading man, Robert Downey Jr., knows all too well. Jon wanted to make sure that experience was drawn upon:
"Robert had strong points of view on these things. He was propelled quite publicly to a much more successful station and we were able to draw upon that. We were able to comment on the phenomena of celebrity as we know it today." Favreau said only "Fantastic Four" has really flirted with this type of story but those two films were more playful in tone. "Iron Man 2" will show Stark grinding the gears in his life as fame drags him down to earth. That's exciting for Favreau, who said he saw a dangerous sameness in the big-screen tales of Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent.
The director wants to make sure that fame shows its ugly side to Tony Stark and reflected on pointed to what makes him different than a Peter Parker or Clark Kent.
"Usually the hero is forced to live an even more bifurcated existence between the esteemed persona of the superhero version of himself and the humble or disguised existences of his secret-identity self.
Those twin stories deviate more and more as the hero becomes more established. The hero starts to leave behind the secret identity. All of these franchises struggle to find their different angle on all of that as they move forward but the thing is it's all fairly limited and limiting. There are only so many stories there. We're flying in a different direction." Iron Man 2 comes to the U.S. theaters on May 7th and a week earlier in many European countries.
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