Iron Man turned out to be a surprisingly fun, entertaining and dynamite movie. It had its weaknesses for sure, but as a summer comic book movie it knocked it out of the park. A great first outing for the brand new Marvel Studios!
Now, as some of you may know the director of Iron Man, Jon Favreau has not yet been signed to direct Iron Man 2. According the my good friend Robert over at IESB, the reason he isn’t signed yet is because the two sides havne’t come to an agreement over money yet. IESB gives us this:
About a week ago, the IESB was tipped off by a junior source at Marvel Studios that there had been some delays with Jon’s negotiations regarding the sequel. When asked why I was told that Marvel and Favreau hadn’t been able to come to terms regarding money.
Ok, the article goes on to say they the two sides have only had 1 phone conversation in the last 5 weeks. But that doesn’t really mean anything at all… since Marvel has their hands full right now with Hulk getting released this week as well. 5 weeks isn’t anything to get uptight over.
However, some people (including my buddy Robert) are automatically labeling Marvel Studios as being “cheap” since they won’t just lay down and meet Jon Favreau’s demands… calling Marvel cheap before even knowing how much Favreau is asking for. I never cease to be amazed how much people always feel the need to rally against “THE MAN” without ever stopping to consider that “THE MAN” might be right from time to time.
Look, I REALLY like Jon Favreau and I hope he comes back to direct Iron Man 2… but before people go and get their panties all twisted up over this, let’s just wait and see what happens once Jon and Marvel start the negotiations again, and till we find out how much Jon is asking for.
The reality is, the DIRECTION of Iron Man was pretty good… but not great. The real strength of the film was in the script (by Mark Fergus… who also did the screenplay for “Children Of Men”). Favreau did a good job… but let’s be honest here… if YOU were the head of Marvel Studios and you thought you could get another director who could do as good of better than Favreau did with a good script in their hands for less money than Favreau is asking for… You’d get a new guy too. So would I.
But as I said… who knows… maybe Favreau isn’t asking for all that much… maybe he’s asking for way too much… or maybe the reality is they honestly just haven’t had time to really get to negotiating yet and everyone just need to hold their horses for a few more weeks before forming any sort of opinion or jumping to conclusions. Just a thought.
