Written by Jonah Keel

While on the set of I LOVE YOU MAN, actor and IRON MAN director Jon Favreau talked a little about his role in I LOVE YOU MAN, before launching into details about the IRON MAN SEQUEL.  Favs was quick to point out that he hasn’t officially been hired to do anything on the sequel yet.  But once he got going, he had plenty to say about IRON MAN 2 and even the AVENGERS!

Sequel wise, Favs talked about how HANDCOCK might possibly sideline classic comic arc DEMON IN A BOTTLE as the basis for the next film.

Favreau- “The comic book fans might see ‘Demon in a Bottle’ as a fresh story line but I haven’t seen ‘Hancock’ yet.  From what I’ve seen it seems there is a lot of imagery that seems to be shared.  Him flying through billboards and things.  The idea of the hero whose biggest enemy is himself, and him fighting through his demons, you want to come at the audience with something fresh.  You don’t want to feel like you are echoing something that somebody else is doing.”

Favs also hinted that classic villain the Mandarin might not show up yet either. 

Favreau- “There is a lot that is very relevant about that character, in the pool of the landscape that we find ourselves in, but there is something off putting and distasteful about the way that the Mandarin had been presented back in the 60’s.  I don’t think that is relevant anymore.“

So what can we expect from the Iron Man sequel?

Favreau- “we have a movie that people seem to like and you can’t give them less.  You have to give them more…. You have got to out do what you did before. ”

So there you go.  Read the full interview for more on IRON MAN 2 as well as I LOVE YOU MAN.

Question: Iron Man did really good.

Favreau: Ya. Really, really good. You guys were the only ones who gave a shit before Comicon.  Then since Comicon everything just started to build, then people got excited by it, and then we just were at the MTV awards a couple of days ago.  Everybody online voted for the movie, we got some golden popcorn, and you could tell by the reviews and box office that everybody seems to have jumped on board and really loves the movie.  That is really, really gratifying for all of us who worked so hard for so many years on the thing. 

Question:  So now you are back to being in front of the camera and goofing off?

Favreau:  Yeah, it was pretty interesting.  I am definitely a supporting character and this is a big ensemble comedy.  There is a lot of sitting around in your little trailer.  It was like right after ‘Iron Man’ and I’m on it, and everybody was like ‘Why are you here?’.  I said to Robert [Downy Jr.] ‘It’s really weird to go from directing a big, big movie, and going around the world with you for three weeks, and having the red carpet rolled out for us all across Europe, Asia, Australia, and then you come back.  You are sitting in your little trailer doing a little comedy.’  He says ‘It’s the best thing you could do.  Trap wood and carry water.’  It’s very easy to lose your bearings when something very wonderful happens, or when something really devastating happens.  It tends to throw your whole life off.  I know when I’ve experienced that in the past it throws you off.  You lose your bearings.  It was very nice to come here and work for a director like John Hamburg, who is a really good guy, and it’s a really great ensemble of performers.  It was great just to be able to dive into something where all I had to worry about was being funny, knowing my lines, and being a good scene partner.

Question:  What makes you a good Alpha Male?

Favreau:  In this movie?  I don’t know.  I think there is a little bit of that in all of us and you just play that out.  Paul Rudd plays a guy who is very sensitive, so it’s very fun to play the opposite of him, and just make his life a living hell.

Question:  Are you getting in any bar brawls in this?

Favreau:  No, I’m not that kind of Alpha Male.  I’m just more like a shitty, insensitive, angry person.  The real key is to just be a guy who lets anger dictate their inner thoughts.  If you just find things to be angry about it’s very easy to be an asshole.  That’s my key to the character.

Question:  What is it like working with Jaime Pressly?

Favreau:  She is great, I know her from ‘Earl’.  I have worked with her a little bit, but now I play her husband.  There is a lot of improv going on, on the set, because John really encourages that, so she is real quick and real fun.  It’s just exactly the way I like to work.  He wrote the script but he’s not precious with it, and he creates an environment that I try to create as well.  It’s giving people freedom within the parameters of the scene and the story.  Just to have a good time and bring themselves to it.  Four out of five times you say things that are not good.  But one in five times you come up with something interesting.  In the editing room you find a way to work that all in.

Question:  How big is your role in this?  How many days are you shooting on this?

Favreau:  I’m shooting about 2 weeks all told.  Some of those are like wedding scenes and things like that, so I don’t have a big part, but the scenes I am in are a lot of fun.  Look, it’s hard to schedule me into a movie.  It takes somebody to go out of their way to make it fit my schedule because I like to stay in town.  When you are working on a film like ‘Iron Man’, that thing takes two years and that’s your top priority, so it has to squeeze between your day job gigs. 

Question:  Are you still working on DVD stuff?

Favreau:  Yeah, we are going to do a commentary.  I just got delivered a whole bunch of extras that look really, really good.  We had cameras on the set all the time.  They put together something for ‘Iron Man’ that spans from the first story meetings, to designing the suit, all the way through mixing it up at Skywalker Ranch, through the premiere.  There are hours and hours of great stuff that will be available eventually.  We have to look over all of that stuff so there is still a lot of work to be done.  Then there is trying to figure out where the hell we are now and what we are doing.

Question:  Would you launch into another two year movie after this?

Favreau:  Yeah, I would do it.  Hopefully we’ll figure out how to get ‘Iron Man 2’ going and I’ll be involved with that.  You have got to out do what you did before.  So, if the last one took two years, we would need at least that to do what we are talking about, or at least thinking about.  Nobody knew about ‘Iron Man’, and that was a disadvantage in some ways, but nobody expected anything.  I think people were pleased based on the fact that they had no preconceptions about the project.  Now, we have a movie that people seem to like and you can’t give them less.  You have to give them more.  There are challenges that come with that as well as the benefit of people already understanding who he is and the character.  We told the origin story so where do you go from here?  There are plenty of story lines to explore from the 40 years of history from that character.

Question:  Have you chosen anything?

Favreau:  No, we haven’t.  I haven’t been hired to do it yet.  I know that Robert and I have talked a lot about what types of things we would like to do, and how to play into the strengths of what we discovered last time around.  I look forward to rolling up my sleeves.  Hopefully that won’t be too long in coming.

Question:  Kevin Feige said that he was pretty confident that you guys would get something going pretty quickly.  Peter Billingsley said the same thing as well.

Favreau:  Yeah, Kevin is just a gem of a guy.  He really walked the line very well of being the guy who is in charge of movies, and the studio, as well as being my producer and somebody who oversaw the way that the source material was being dealt with.  That is a lot of hats for a guy to wear.  It was a fairly new position for him.  I don’t think that he has ever had the responsibility he had on ‘Iron Man’ before.  I know that he has worked on ‘The Hulk’ since then, but its great to have a mix of somebody who respects the source material and doesn’t just treat it like something you can use or discard as you see fit, and was very supportive in getting us what we needed to make a good movie.  The casting of Robert, the visual effects budget, working with the right vendors, but he had a very high standard of quality control in the film.  He was also very helpful in helping me understand the genre, and what people expect from it, while still giving Robert and I the room to have a very different take on the material.  We broke a lot of the rules that the genre normally has.  We have all been rewarded for taking the chances that we did.

Question:  With all the success on such a huge movie it may be more difficult to get back to doing something smaller like ‘Made’. 

Favreau:  It is because you have to make hay while the sun is shining.  You are only relevant for so long as a director.  You’ve only got so many movies in you, especially when they are that big, and I think the smaller movies like ‘Made’ were appropriate for earlier in my career.  I didn’t know what I was doing that much, but I had a lot of inspiration, and smaller movies were the new voice.  They had an edgier take and it lends itself to newer filmmakers.  Now that I’ve been around the block I don’t think I could make an edgy small movie now.  I’m too old, I’m a suburban Dad, but I can bring a certain different take on a genre film like ‘Iron Man’ or ‘Elf’.  There is a clear cut genre and I could maybe do a fresh take on that, so right now I’m interested in trying to bring a fresh voice to a genre that maybe doesn’t always have the originality that the fans would like.

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