In what might seem very minor change in the Iron Man 2 film version, Justin Hammer will not be seen as a stodgy old coniving buisnessman but a young snappy business rival every bit as charming and powerful as Tony Stark.
Fused Film tells us Rockwell’s Justin Hammer will be different than his Comic Book counterpart:
“They wanted to go with a rival for Tony Stark who is closer to his age, and make him American,” Rockwell told MTV. Rockwell went on to say that his character would serve as a rival in terms of influence, prestige and social power, but wouldn’t be fighting against Tony Stark, decked out in his own suit of battle armor. “My character is the brains, not the brawn,” Rockwell said.”
It doesn’t bother me that they are changing Justin Hammer to be a younger less british version than the comics. Frankly if they gave him a new name and just had Rockwell play the role of a business rival that threatens his company with a hostile takeover people would just complain that he should have just been Hammer all along. So they flipped a coin.
A strong overall theme of the comics has always been that Iron Man had his battles in his world, while Tony Stark had his battles in his world. The stress of this leads up to the most notable storyline EVER in his comic, Demon in a Bottle. We all want to see it get there, and people were upset it didn’t happen in the first movie, and then even more that looks like it wont happen yet.
But this excites me because they are not ignoring it. It is a YET thing. Build up the origin, now build up the character and his struggle with his duality and the massive stress it brings THEN unleash the demon.
A good story is wasted if there is no foundation. Like returning Megatron to Transformers after one movie? Wasted opportunity. The fans are chomping at the bit for this story so why blow your wad and waste the chance to make it monumental.
