The marketing campaign for director Shane Black’s superhero pic Iron Man 3 has kicked into high gear with only a couple of months to go before the film’s release, and we recently got a great look at the sequel by way of a new trailer that showed off some exciting new footage from the pic.  We’ve gathered that the story will find Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark in a rather precarious and vulnerable position, but a couple of shots of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts in the new trailer had people wondering about her character’s arc in the story.

Marvel’s Kevin Feige recently spoke at length about Potts’ crucial role in Iron Man 3, revealing a rather surprising love triangle in the pic and hinting at a twist on the tired “damsel in distress” plot device.  Hit the jump to see what he had to say, which includes some thoughts on the pic’s lighter tone despite the dramatic trailers.

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Speaking with About.com, Feige revealed the central emotional pull for Tony in Iron Man 3:

“The love triangle in this movie is really between Tony, Pepper and the suits. Tony, Pepper and his obsession with those suits, and the obsession with technology. And, it’s sort of unique for a big superhero summer blockbuster franchise to have that kind of layers.

Yes, there’s a bad guy. Yes, the stakes are very, very high--the President of the United States is in danger. Air Force One is attacked. There are big stakes to this movie. But the real stakes are, is Tony going to be able to set aside the obsession to spend all day, every day in that workshop, tinkering with the suits in order to focus on, as he says in the trailer, the one thing that matters most - Pepper. And that actually is what the entire movie’s about.”

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Feige went on to talk about Potts’ active role in the film and whether we might see her in a suit sometime soon:

"I will tell you this. In this movie [Iron Man 3] we play with the convention of the damsel in distress. We are bored by the damsel in distress. But, sometimes we need our hero to be desperate enough in fighting for something other than just his own life. So, there is fun to be had with 'Is Pepper in danger or is Pepper the savior?' over the course of this movie.

In terms of where we go with future movies, we’ll see. In the comic books she does get a taste for the suit and becomes her own hero named Rescue, who doesn’t necessarily battle other people, but is on missions to help people and to save people. Will we do that down the line with Gwyneth Paltrow? Who knows. But her being in the suit is something we have been playing with since Iron Man 2, where we did some designs and it didn’t end up fitting in that movie. But the little taste you saw here [in an Iron Man 3 clip] is something that we’re certainly interested in. "

When the first trailer for Iron Man 3 was released, many were struck by the super serious tone and heavy stakes that seemed to be weighing on Tony.  Feige assures that the film is much lighter than the trailers would have you believe:

In terms of the marketing of this movie, if you go back and look at the marketing of Avengers, it promises a much darker movie than the movie actually is. The movie is much more fun than the trailer would show. Same thing with this. This trailer is--he’s being blown apart, his life is at stake, how will he get out of it? The movie is much, much more fun than that, but that’s what gets people into the audience."

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Image via Marvel