Kicking off the blockbuster movie season, Marvel Studios is releasing Iron Man 3 on May 3^rd.  This time out, brilliant billionaire inventor Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), aka Iron Man, faces a terrifying enemy, known as The Mandarin (Sir Ben Kingsley), whose reach knows no bounds, and he must rely on his own instincts to protect those that he loves.  From director Shane Black (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), the film also stars Gwyneth Paltrow (“Pepper Potts”), Don Cheadle (“James Rhodes”), Guy Pearce (“Aldrich Killian”), Rebecca Hall (“Maya Hansen”) and Jon Favreau (“Happy Hogan”).

During this press conference at the film’s Los Angeles junket, co-stars Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle and Sir Ben Kingsley talked about the biggest challenge in making Iron Man 3, the transformation of Pepper Potts, how Rhodey has evolved, how much of The Mandarin was actually in the script, what director Shane Black brought to this installment of the franchise, finding the right tone, how much they wanted the aftermath of the events in The Avengers to affect Tony Stark, what they hope people get out of the film, and the future of the Iron Man franchise.  Check out what they had to say after the jump, and be aware that there are some spoilers.

The U.S. premiere of Iron Man 3 was held last night in Los Angeles, and pretty much everyone from the Marvel Cinematic Universe walked the red carpet.  Though the various actors, actresses, directors, and producers didn’t exactly have time for lengthy interviews while making their way into the theater, a couple of them did drop some interesting tidbits about some upcoming Marvel films.  Gwyneth Paltrow, for one, seems to think that there isn’t going to be an Iron Man 4, and Joss Whedon provided a few more updates on The Avengers 2, even hinting at two new characters he says are in the film.  Hit the jump to read on.

One of the last major pieces of Marvel’s upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy film appears to be falling into place.  Director James Gunn has already secured Chris Pratt (Star-Lord), Zoe Saldana (Gamora), David Bautista (Drax the Destroyer), and most recently Michael Rooker (Yondu) to play his titular Guardians in the film, and just yesterday we learned that Ophelia Lovibond (No Strings Attached) has signed on to play a mysterious character that’s rumored to be an aide to the villainous The Controller.

Well, now it appears that one of the actors that previously tested for the protagonist role of Star-Lord has subsequently been set as the film’s villain, as Pushing Daisies star Lee Pace is in final talks to play the antagonist in Guardians of the Galaxy.  Hit the jump for more.

It appears that Marvel Studios has secured the rights to another very popular comics character.  While 20th Century Fox’s 2003 take on Daredevil was a bit of a misfire, the studio had been trying to move forward on a new iteration of the character in recent years.  30 Days of Night director David Slade came onboard to direct a Daredevil reboot in the spring of 2011, and Fringe scribe Brad Caleb Kane was subsequently tapped to pen the screenplay.  Movement on the project was quiet for a full year, though, and the following summer Slade left the film to helm the pilot for NBC’s Hannibal.

When Slade exited the project, however, Fox was facing a ticking clock.  The studio had to move quickly to get a new Daredevil movie into production before the rights to the character reverted back to Marvel.  Well, a new Daredevil film failed to materialize in the ensuing months, and Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige confirmed today that Marvel now holds to the rights to the character.  Hit the jump for more.

And Phase Two is off and running.  With the release of Iron Man 3 just over a week away, Disney and Marvel unveiled the first teaser trailer for this fall’s sequel Thor: The Dark World this morning.  While Marvel dipped its toe into the fantastical realm with the first Thor, it’s clear from this debut trailer that director Alan Taylor’s (Game of Thrones) follow-up is very heavy on the fantasy.  We’ve gone through the new trailer and screengrabbed a batch of images, giving us a better look at the world of Thor 2 and its characters.  Christopher Eccleston’s villain Malekith looks especially sinister, and I can’t get enough of Tom Hiddleston’s Loki reveal.

Hit the jump to check out the images, and if you somehow missed the trailer click here.  The film also stars Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Jaimie Alexander, Stellan Skarsgård, Idris Elba, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Kat Dennings, Ray Stevenson, Zachary Levi, Tadanobu Asano, Jaimie Alexander, Rene Russo, and Anthony Hopkins.  Thor: The Dark World opens in 3D on November 8th.

Disney has released a couple of new images from director Alan Taylor’s (Game of Thrones) Marvel sequel Thor: The Dark World.  We’ll get our first look at footage from the film tomorrow when the debut trailer is released, but for now these images do a nice job of teasing the God of Thunder’s return as well as Natalie Portman’s role in the follow-up.  It’s clear that Portman’s Jane joins Thor in Asgard in the film, and I’m interested to see how the character adjusts to life in the realm.

Hit the jump to check out the images and for some rather revealing quotes about what to expect from Thor 2 storywise, and check back here tomorrow to catch the first trailer.  The film also stars Tom Hiddleston, Christopher Eccleston, Stellan Skarsgård, Idris Elba, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Kat Dennings, Ray Stevenson, Zachary Levi, Tadanobu Asano, Jaimie Alexander, Rene Russo, and Anthony Hopkins.  Thor: The Dark World opens in 3D on November 8th.

Marvel has unveiled the first poster for the sequel Thor: The Dark World.  This debut comes ahead of the film’s first trailer, which is set to be released next week.  There’s not much to the poster other than an intimidating-looking Chris Hemsworth as the titular character surrounded by a rather intense storm.  The sequel, directed by Game of Thrones helmer Alan Taylor, will find Thor squaring off against the villainous dark elf Malekith the Accursed, played by Christopher Eccleston.

Hit the jump to check out the poster, and come back on Tuesday, April 23rd to see the film’s trailer.  The pic also stars Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Stellan Skarsgård, Idris Elba, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Kat Dennings, Ray Stevenson, Zachary Levi, Tadanobu Asano, Jaimie Alexander, Rene Russo, and Anthony Hopkins.  Thor: The Dark World opens in 3D on November 8th.

As filming is currently underway on Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the next film on the studio’s docket is Guardians of the Galaxy.  Casting has been ramping up lately on the space-set film, with Chris Pratt onboard as Star-Lord, Michael Rooker set to play Yondu, and Zoe Saldana and David Bautista in negotiations to fill the roles of Gamora and Drax the Destroyer, respectively.  Writer/director James Gunn recently took part in a lengthy interview in which he spoke about his plans for Guardians of the Galaxy. In addition to revealing that filming begins at the end of June, he talked about the importance of the character Rocket Raccoon, how he put his cast together, and he addressed comparisons to Star Wars.  Hit the jump to read on.

Production is currently underway on Marvel’s Captain America sequel, and though initially it was thought that Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter—who played a major role in the first film—wouldn’t be appearing in The Winter Soldier, we subsequently learned that Atwell will indeed be popping up in the follow-up.  As The Winter Soldier takes place in the present, one assumes that Atwell will likely be relegated to flashback sequences or will be covered in old age makeup.  Either way, it doesn’t sound like Peggy Carter will be a major character in the film.

Atwell recently spoke a bit about Captain America and its sequel, revealing that Marvel has something planned for Comic-Con that will show “what Peggy’s really capable of.”  The actress also addressed the online campaign for her to star in the Tomb Raider reboot.  Hit the jump to see what she had to say.

If I know our readers, you want to see as much of you can of Iron Man 3.  You are in luck: Marvel has released six minutes of behind-the-scenes footage from the superhero sequel.  It is nice to see Robert Downey Jr. play with all the different suits (although there is a notable amount of plainclothes action) and do some of his own stunts.  But for me the big revelation is that Tony Stark appears to spend a good deal of bonding time with a young kid (Ty Simpkins).

Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Stephanie Szostak, James Badge Dale, Jon Favreau, and Ben Kingsley co-star.  Directed by Shane Black (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), Iron Man 3 opens May 3.  Watch the B-roll after the break.

In addition to giving a moving response to the Boston Marathon tragedy, Patton Oswalt has been using his status as Lord High Geek to star in some amazing comedy videos this week.  The first is a bit from College Humor where he plays the Penguin in the site’s ongoing mockery of Batman, “Badman”.  In the sketch, Batman fails to understand the difference between death and being asleep.

The other video is a deleted scene from Parks and Recreation where he plays a citizen doing a filibuster by creating possibly the nerdiest fan-fiction crossover ever between Star Wars: Episode VII and The Avengers 2 while also bringing in the rest of the Marvel Universe, licensing rights be damned.  Eventually it just becomes geeky white noise where I stopped following the plot and just heard bits like “Lando Calrissian, Princess Leia, Han Solo love triangle”, “Robot Chewbacca”, and “Time Ribbon”.  I imagine that Oswalt wrote/riffed the uncut 8-minute scene, but since Parks has such amazing writers, I could believe they had input as well.  Hit the jump for comic greatness.

This shouldn’t really come as a massive surprise, but actor Michael Rooker has now joined the cast of Marvel’s upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy. Rooker has a close working relationship with Guardians writer/director James Gunn, having appeared in Gunn’s previous films Slither and Super.  He’s probably best known to the general public for playing Merle on AMC’s The Walking Dead, and while most pegged Rooker for the role of Rocket Raccooon in the space-set Marvel film, he’ll actually be tackling the role of Yondu.  Hit the jump for more.

As we move closer towards the release of writer/director Shane Black’s highly anticipated sequel Iron Man 3, Disney/Marvel are starting to unveil more and more of the film in their marketing by way of clips, images, trailer, TV spots, etc.  For those of you that are trying to avoid seeing as much of the film as possible before it hits theaters theaters, though, the studios have released a bit of marketing that promises not to spoil any of the plot.  Today, Disney has unveiled some LEGO-centric posters for the film, which are exact replicas of the previous Iron Man 3 posters with one tiny difference: a LEGO Tony Stark stands in for Robert Downey Jr.  It’s a fun tie-in to the LEGO Marvel Super Heroes sets that are in stores now, and it’s neat to see how Tony’s numerous suits of armor are portrayed in LEGO form.

Hit the jump to check out the posters.  Iron Man 3 opens in 3D on May 3rd.

Marvel’s run of Phase One films culminated with the smashing success of last year’s The Avengers, and while Phase Two is gearing up to kick off next month with the release of Iron Man 3, there are a couple of Marvel veterans who have their hands creatively in more than one upcoming film.  Screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely wrote the script for Captain America: The First Avenger, and while they were enlisted to pen the sequel Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the duo also worked on the screenplay for this November’s Thor: The Dark World.

Steve recently spoke with Markus and McFeely in anticipation of director Michael Bay’s upcoming black comedy Pain & Gain (which they wrote), and during the course of their conversation the two talked extensively about their work on Captain America 2, Thor 2, and Marvel films in general.  Hit the jump to see what they had to say about Easter Eggs, Black Widow’s presence in Cap 2, the amount of flashbacks we can expect, planning for Phase Three, and much, much more.

Marvel finally released the massive Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One box set earlier this week, and included in the collection is a bounty of extras from the studio’s past and future films.  We’ve already shared a collection of images, video, and concept art for a few of the Phase Two films, and today quite a few deleted scenes from The Avengers and Iron Man 2 have surfaced online.  The Avengers scenes are minor bits and pieces that were nipped out of the finished film, but the Iron Man 2 footage is fascinating because it reveals an alternate ending for the film that involves Mickey Rourke’s Whiplash kidnapping Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper.  It’s rather anticlimactic and it’s not hard to see why Jon Favreau went back and reshot the ending that now concludes the final iteration of the film.

Hit the jump to watch the deleted scenes from The Avengers and the alternate ending for Iron Man 2. [Update: We've added the "And Then Shawarma After" featurette after the jump, which takes a brief look behind the scenes of the Avengers tag.]