Trivia for
Iron Man (2008)

photos

board

trailer

details

• Rachel McAdams was Jon Favreau's first choice to play Pepper Potts, but she turned the role down.
  
  
• During pre-production, Robert Downey Jr. set up an office next to Jon Favreau's office, to discuss his role with Favreau and to be more involved in the film's screenwriting.
  
  
• Jon Favreau was originally going to direct The First Avenger: Captain America (2011) in the manner of a superhero comedy adventure, but he instead chose to direct this film and give it a more serious tone. Ironically, Nick Cassavetes, who was chosen to direct that film, had been filled in to direct this film in December 2004.
  
  

• Jon Favreau describes the film as "a kind of independent film-espionage thriller crossbreed; a Robert Altman-directed Superman (1978), with shades of Tom Clancy novels, James Bond films, RoboCop (1987), and Batman Begins (2005)."
  
  
• In the comics, Tony Stark participated (and became Iron Man) in the Vietnam War; later this was retconned to the Gulf War. In this film, the character's origin was retconned to Afghanistan, as Jon Favreau did not wish to make the film a period piece but instead give it a realistic contemporary look.
  
  
• During shooting, Jon Favreau preferred improvisation in dialogue scenes, calling back to his Robert Altman influence.
  
  
• Tony Stark drives an Audi R8 in the film, as part of a promotion deal Marvel Studios made with the Audi Automobile Company. Two other vehicles, the Audi S5 coupe and the Audi Q7 SUV, also make an appearance in the film.
  
  
• An Aaton 35mm camera was accidentally run over by a tank during a shoot.
  
  
• In October 1999, Quentin Tarantino was approached to write and direct the film. Later, Joss Whedon, a big fan of the comic book, was in negotiations to direct the film in June 2001. In December 2004, Nick Cassavetes was hired as a director, with the film to release in 2006, but everything fell through. Finally, Jon Favreau was hired as director.
  
  
• Nicolas Cage and Tom Cruise were interested in playing Iron Man. Cruise in particular was going to act in and produce the film.
  
  
• Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard's father, composer Ramin Djawadi and Stan Winston are among the film's crew who are fans of Iron Man. Downey himself is such a big fan of Iron Man he swears to make 15 films if possible about him. Jeff Bridges and Faran Tahir have also read some of the comics.
  
  
• Stan Lee, the creator of Iron Man, had originally based Tony Stark on Howard Hughes, whom he felt was "one of the most colourful men of our time: an inventor, an adventurer, a multimillionaire, a ladies man and finally a nutcase." Robert Downey Jr. further described his portrayal of Stark as "a challenge of making a wealthy, establishmentarian, weapons-manufacturing, hard-drinking, womanizing prick into a character who is likable and a hero."
  
  
• According to Ramin Djawadi, Tony Stark's different moods, as performed by Robert Downey Jr., was the inspiration the Iron Man scores in the film.
  
  
• To prepare for his role as Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. spent five days a week weight training and practiced martial arts to get into shape.
  
  
• Ghostface Killah, who has been a long-time fan of the Iron Man comics (he uses the aliases "Ironman" and "Tony Starks", titled his 1996 album "Ironman" and samples clips of "Iron Man" (1966)), was given a cameo as a Dubai tycoon. However, his scene was cut from the final film. Favreau apologized to Ghostface and made it up to him by using his "We Celebrate" video in the film.
  
  
• All three sets of Iron Man's armor were designed by Phil Saunders and Adi Granov (a comic book artist from the "Iron Man" comic). They were then constructed by Stan Winston Studios.
  
  
• The Iron Man Mark I armor weighed 90 pounds.
  
  
• In the scene where Pepper discovers Tony removing the damaged Iron Man armor, you can clearly see Captain America's shield partially constructed on a workbench. This same scene was shown in many trailers, but the image of the shield was edited out.
  
  
• When Tony Stark leaves Jim Rhodes to go fight Iron Monger, Rhodes looks at Stark's Mark II armor and says, "Next time." In the comics, Jim Rhodes dons his own Iron Man armor to become War Machine.
  
  
• An animatronic puppet of the Iron Monger was built for the film by Stan Winston Studios. It stood 10 feet tall and weighed 800 pounds, and was built on a set of gimbals to simulate walking. It required five operators to run it.
  
  
• When Robert Downey Jr. was carrying out motion-capture work on the film, he would sometimes wear the helmet, sleeves and chest of the Iron Man armor over the motion-capture suit to realistically portray Iron Man's movements.
  
  
• Terrence Howard was cast as James Rhodes, as Jon Favreau felt he could also portray War Machine admirably. To prepare for his role, Howard visited the Nellis Air Force Base on March 16 2007, where he ate with the Base's airmen and observed the routines of HH-60 Pave Hawk rescue helicopters and F-22 Raptor jets.
  
  
• To prepare for his role as Obadiah Stane, Jeff Bridges read some of the "Iron Man" comic books that featured Stane, and grew a goatee and shaved his head (which he said was something he always wanted to do).
  
  
• Comic book writer Stan Lee, as always, has a cameo in the live-action film of his creation Iron Man. He plays the man with three blondes whom Tony Stark mistakes for Hugh M. Hefner. He later mentioned that it was his most fun cameo.
  
  
• Jon Favreau shot the film in California, as he felt that too many superhero films had been set on the East Coast, particularly in New York City.
  
  
• An early draft of the script revealed Tony Stark to be the creator of Dr. Otto Octavius's tentacles from Spider-Man 2 (2004).
  
  
• 400 extras were meant to be filmed standing at Tony Stark's press conference, but Robert Downey Jr. suggested they ought to sit down, as that would be more realistic and comfortable.
  
  
• According to Jon Favreau, it was difficult to find a proper opponent for Iron Man to face, since he wanted the film to remain grounded in reality as much as possible. It was decided to have a foe in the film who would serve as a parallel of Stark (i.e. an armored opponent). Well-known enemies like the Titanium Man and the Crimson Dynamo were considered, but finally the lesser-known Iron Monger, Obadiah Stane, was chosen as Iron Man's adversary (Stane, as well as possessing his own armor, is also a business contemporary of Stark).
  
  
• Marvel Studios' first self-financed movie.
  
  
• Marvel and Paramount approached the CMT show 'Trick My Truck' to select a Truck driver and trick his rig with the Ultimate Ironman makeover. Lance Burk was the lucky driver to be selected. When finished the exterior of the truck was painted to look like Iron Man's armor, led lights were put everywhere, the engine compartment was tricked out, jet thrusters (not real ones obviously) were attached to the back, and a copy of Iron Man's chest plate was attached to the back under a crafted sign that said Iron Man. The inside of the truck was refurnished to look like Tony Stark's lab, complete with a monster sound and video system.
  
  
• The cave that imprisons Tony Stark was a 150-200 yard-long set, which had built-in movable forks to allow greater freedom for the film's crew. It also had an air conditioning system installed, as production designer J. Michael Riva had learnt that remote caves are actually very cold.
  
  
• Production designer J. Michael Riva researched on objects found in prison which could be improvised and used for other purposes (for instance a sock used to make tea), to provide more verisimilitude to the film.
  
  
• Jon Favreau chose Industrial Light & Magic to provide the film's VFX after watching Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) and Transformers (2007).
  
  
• The film's composer Ramin Djawadi's favourite musical score is the "Kickass" theme, because he composed it according to "a rhythm very much like a machine."
  
  
• Most of the exterior scenes set in Afghanistan were filmed at Olancha Sand Dunes. There, the crew had to endure two days of 40-60 mph winds.
  
  
• Jon Favreau advised composer Ramin Djawadi to keep the core of the music on heavy guitar, which he felt suited Iron Man best. Djiwadi composed the music on a heavy guitar before arranging it for the orchestra to perform.
  
  
• According to Terrence Howard, he and Robert Downey Jr. competed physically on the set: "I'm 40-50 pounds heavier than him, so I'm lifting and I push up about 225 and knocked it out ten times. Robert wanted to go about 235, and he did it, so I push it up to about 245... Robert and his competitive ass almost tore my shoulder trying to keep up with him!"
  
  
• An early draft of the script had Howard Stark, Iron Man's father, be a ruthless industrialist who becomes the War Machine, with the two having to fight it out.
  
  
• An early draft of the script had the Mandarin appear in the film, re-imagined as an Indonesian terrorist.
  
  
• Gwyneth Paltrow only needed to travel 15 minutes to get to the studio. She claimed that this is a part of the reason she took the role, as she could be home with her two children during the entire shoot.
  
  
• In the Apogee award scene, the orchestra is playing the theme from the original Iron Man 1966 animated series.
  
  
• The theme song from "Iron Man" (1966) is played in several shots (in the casino scene; in Stark's bedroom scene and finally it is the personalized ring tone for Stark on James Rhodes cell phone).
  
  
• The terrorist group that kidnaps Tony Stark is called the ‘The Order of the Ten Rings’. This is a reference to long-time Iron Man foe, The Mandarin, who uses ten rings that he found in the wreckage of an alien spacecraft as his own source of power.
  
  
• Stark and Rhodes graduated from MIT together. In the scene where Rhodes calls Iron Man (who's flying with the F-22's), you can see a big gold ring on the hand that he's holding the phone in. This is MIT's class ring, the "brass rat."
  
  
• As a tribute to Howard Hughes, who inspired Iron Man, production was mainly based in the former Hughes Company soundstages in Playa Vista. The scene where the Iron Man Mark III armor was created was filmed in the area where Hughes assembled the H-4 Hercules airplane (better known as “The Spruce Goose”).
  
  
• The sound used during a target lock on in Iron Man's heads up display is the sound of the laser cannon firing in the original Space Invaders game.
  
  
• The F-22 in the closeup ground shots is serial number 6, deployed to Edwards Air Force Base. This is one of the last "pre-production" F-22's, and is one of the first fully operational aircraft. (The first 5 airframes were later retrofitted to also be fully operational). Interestingly, the pole model outside of Stark Industries is labeled as "YF-22", meaning the first flying prototype for the competition between the YF-22 and the Northrop YF-23. The size of this pole model indicates that it may be one of the original wind-tunnel models.
  
  
• Tony Stark's smart-house A.I. is called Jarvis. In the comics, he has a human butler named Edwin Jarvis.
  
  
• S.H.I.E.L.D., the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Engagement and Logistics Division was known in the comics as Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division. It became Strategic Hazard Intervention, Espionage Logistics Directorate in 1991.
  
  
• Shipped to some theaters with the codename 'Debonair'
  
  
• The classical music that Obadiah Stane plays at the piano is by Antonio Salieri. A contemporary of Mozart, 19th-century Austrian nationalism painted him as the villainous, jealous rival, with rumors that he had murdered Mozart by poison. This image has been passed on in works such as Aleksandr Pushkin's "Mozart and Salieri", Peter Shaffer's play and its movie adaptation "Amadeus". This is appropriate considering Stark and Stane's relationship in the movie. (In reality, there is no evidence that Salieri felt any antagonism towards Mozart, or any involvement in his death, and the two collaborated or promoted each other's work on several occasions.)
  
  
• The leader of the Afghanistan terrorist group is named Raza, played by Faran Tahir. Raza is also the name of a Marvel Comics character, who is an alien cyborg and member of the space pirate crew called the Starjammers. The terrorist leader is later scarred on the right side of his face, while the comic book Raza has cybernetic implants on the left side of his face and eye.
  
  
• The film was shipped to some theaters under the name ‘Bell’.
  
  
• The assault rifles Tony Stark refers to as 'his' are in fact modified G36c rifles. The only thing that has changed on most of these weapons is the barrel and upper receiver, but some haven't been modified much at all apart from the magazine wells.
  
  
• The comic book version of Jarvis is a human, Jeeves-like butler, serving Tony Stark and the Avengers, the superhero team Iron Man helped to found. In the film, Jarvis has been re-imagined as an artificial intelligence. According to Peter David's novelization, "JARVIS" is an acronym that stands for "Just A Really Very Intelligent System."
  
  
• During the highway battle with Iron Monger, a building can be seen in the background with a Roxxon logo. In the Marvel Universe, Roxxon is a notorious conglomerate known for illegal activities, agents of which were responsible of the death of Stark's parents.
  
  
• The Stark Industries weapons the terrorists are carrying are actual weapons, but mostly made by German arms firm Heckler & Koch. Many of the terrorists are carrying H&K G36 assault rifles or the smaller UMP sub machinegun. A few are also using Colt M-4s (or various M-4 clones) with various accessories, include ACOG optics, PEQ-2 Infra-Red illuminators, and notably, one terrorist has an M-4 carbine with a 12 gauge Lightweight Shotgun System (LSS) mounted underneath the barrel.
  
  
• In the backgammon scene, Stark throws the dice; it's 6 and 5. He says: "Sheesho Besh". That's a Persian slang in backgammon attributing to a roll of 6 and 5. "6" is "Sheesh" in Persian and "5", "Besh" in Turkish. This is a reference to Shaun Taub's original Persian ethnicity, who's playing the game with Stark.
  
  
• The code names for the pilots in the F-22 Raptors are "Whiplash 1" and "Whiplash 2." In the comics, "Whiplash" is one of Iron Man's super villains.
  
  
• Originally, Iron Man's arch-nemesis the Mandarin was going to be the film's villain, but Jon Favreau felt him to be too fantastic and dated, so he was rewritten into a "working-behind-the-scenes" presence similar to the Dark Lord Sauron from J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" (who also wields magic rings) and Star Wars (1977)'s Emperor Palpatine.
  
  
• Jeff Bridges, hearing that Obadiah was a biblical name, researched on the Book of Obadiah in the Bible, and was surprised to learn that a major theme in that particular book is retribution, which Obadiah Stane represents.
  
  
• The ILM animators studied skydivers performing in a vertical wind tunnel to create Iron Man's aerial movements. Iron Man was also animated to take off slowly and land quickly to make those movements more realistic.
  
  
• To create the shots of Iron Man against the F-22 Raptors, cameras were flown in the air to provide reference for the dynamics of wind and frost at that altitude.
  
  
• The montage of Tony Stark's life story was created by editor Kyle Cooper, and contains real-life photos of a young Robert Downey Jr. and his father.
  
  
• The scene where Jim Rhodes contemplates wearing the original silver armor is a tribute to the character called War Machine, which is a Starktech suit of armor that Tony Stark builds specifically for Rhodes. Although the War Machine armor is silver, it also had a Gatling gun on one shoulder and a rocket launcher on the other shoulder.
  
  
• Just before the final press conference, Tony Stark is reading the newspaper with a grainy, amateur photograph of Ironman on the cover. That picture is part of an entire video shot by onlookers in a bush during initial filming of the movie that appeared on the Internet in the middle of 2007.
  
  
• First film released in 2008 to pass the $300 million mark at the domestic box office.
  
  

• SPOILER: The climactic showdown in the film, with Tony Stark/Iron Man facing Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger is adapted from Iron Man #200, published in November, 1986. Both pit Stane's larger, more powerful Iron Monger armor against Stark's greater experience, and both also feature an exploding reactor as a prominent feature of the battle. Unlike in the film, however, the comic concludes with Stane committing suicide through a repulsor ray blast to the head rather than facing defeat and imprisonment.
  
  
• SPOILER: In the Ultimate Marvel Comics series, the character of Nick Fury is portrayed as African American, with his look and personality tailored after actor Samuel L. Jackson, all carried out with the actor's explicit permission. Jackson, himself a comic book fan, plays Fury in this film.
  
  
• SPOILER: Brian Bendis had written three pages of dialogue for the Nick Fury scene, out of which the filmmakers chose the best lines. To keep it a secret, the scene was filmed with a skeleton crew and was deleted from all previews of the film, which thus maintained the mystery and surprise and kept fans speculative and interested. It conclusively appeared in the final cut as a post-credits scene.
  
  

Related Links