Quoted By:
I will now watch your show
From the new book about the creation of Marvel Studios.
>The Incredible Hulk was Marvel Studios’ safe bet, while Iron Man was the risky side project.
>Robert Downey Jr. met with Marvel Entertainment about playing Doctor Doom in 2005’s Fantastic Four.
>The original Iron Man script was terrible. The Mandarin was the villain and his plan was to dig a tunnel under Stark Industries to steal Stark’s inventions. The story only came together when Jon Favreau decided to make Obadiah Stane the villain and give him his own suit.
>There is a deleted scene revealing Stark Industries built Doctor Octopus’ arms from Spider-Man 2 and an alternative post-credits scene where Nick Fury directly references “radioactive spider bites” and “assorted genetic mutations” as other shit SHIELD is dealing with.
>The Iron Man post-credits scene was supposed to be just a fun nod to the comics. They only started seriously considering doing an Avengers movie after Iron Man was a box office hit.
>Ike Perlmutter originally didn’t want to pay the royalties to feature Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” in the movie.
>Iron Man 2 was not originally part of the plan for Phase 1, but Perlmutter rushed it into production to cash in on the first movie's popularity, and the tepid audience response convinced Marvel to avoid rushing into sequels without having a clear creative vision.
>Earlier drafts of The Avengers were very Iron Man-centric per the demands of the Marvel Creative Committee and even featured Zeke Stane as a supporting villain alongside Loki.
>Scarlett Johansson nearly dropped out of The Avengers due to salary disputes, so Joss Whedon wrote a couple of drafts replacing Black Widow for The Wasp, and he wanted Zooey Deschanel for the role. When Johansson ultimately signed on, the Wasp was cut to focus on the preexisting characters.
