Speaking in an interview at Comic-Con International in San Diego last weekend Favreau commented that he wanted the villains for the first movie to all evolve from the same technology that provides us with the hero Iron Man.
Fans of the series will be aware that two of Stark/Iron Man’s villains use similar technology against him, including Jim Rhodes (played in the movie by Terrence Howard) and business rival Obadiah Stane (played by Jeff Bridges), who will later become Iron Monger.
From the interview;
"I wanted everything to come out of the technology that Tony Stark developed and watch it grow out from there. And then, as you cut the movie together, and you see how it plays, and you learn the personality of the film, then go deeper and deeper."
With the hope that the Iron Man movie in production at the moment will eventually lead to sequels such as the Spider-man franchise, Favreau answers why we’re not seeing the Mandarin, Iron Man’s ultimate opponent, in the movie.
"The big villain's the Mandarin, but the Mandarin is not the type of villain where, right off the bat, you could watch them squaring off. You can't stay true to the books ... without putting off the mainstream audience. ... As he's depicted in the books, I don't know that that depiction would work nowadays. You can't have Sauron be the first person that Frodo meets up with. ... You have to lay enough down in the storyline so, as the story unfolds, you get there, but you also have to delve into the rogues' gallery and see."
Iron Man is expected to make it to cinemas on May 2, 2008 (US).