Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. Talk about IRON MAN 3 and THE AVENGERS
Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. recently showed up to do a Q&A session at the Hero Complex Film Festival in Hollywood on Sunday night, which I was attending. It was very entertaining, and I will be posting a full video of the Q&A session later, but for now I just wanted to point out a couple things that the two awesome talents talked about, Iron Man 3 which is being directed by Shane Black, and The Avengers which is being directed by Joss Whedon.
Here’s what they had to say after they are asked by a fan about director Shane Black's involvement with IM3, who worked with Downey Jr. on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,
Robert Downey Jr: Here’s the first thing I want to say. The most difficult part of making Iron Man 3 is going to be negotiating Jon Favreau’s acting deal.
Jon Favreau: If The Freak isn’t in it, I’m not doing it. If Happy Hogan doesn’t turn into The Freak, I’m not doing it. Here’s what happens to Happy Hogan, he marrys Pepper Potts…
RDJ: Wait a minute, you want both?
Favreau: I want a love scene with Pepper Potts... with my shirt on, and I want to transform into The Freak.
RDJ: The negotiations have begun, and so far I’m in agreement on every point. Well Shane, interestingly enough, there was a point when Jon and I were stuck on an idea, we were just in an exploratory phase. So I said, ‘We should talk to Shane.’ And I was like, ‘Shane, we can’t really pay.’ And he was like, ‘Bring me some salmon and some blueberries.’ And we went to Yoda’s house in Miracle Mile and it wound up coming in handy, particularly for a couple scenes. So what I can say about this kind of circle of life thing is Shane, as he’s getting into the process, and getting his sea legs and stuff, he goes, ‘When can we talk to Jon?’ So there’s going to be this kind of conglomerate of efforts.
Favreau: And I love the franchise and I’m a big fan of Shane’s as well so hopefully I can be helpful because I want to see this thing grow and transform. And actually, when it finally landed on Shane, it was like, ‘All right, that’s gonna be something interesting.’ Especially because it’s gonna be so difficult for whoever does that one because although it’s Iron Man 3, the whole Avengers thing, I guess in comics you can say that it’s an individual storyline, and you can break it off into a group. But, in movies it’s hard not to take into consideration what just happened. What are you gonna say? They all just lost their cell phones and you can’t get help?’So it’s going to take a lot of ingenuity to make it make sense to a mainstream film audience as well as a comic book audience.
RDJ: But again the toughest man of Iron Man 3 will be Jon Favreau’s day rate. It’s gonna be huge, and I’ll see that they pay it.
The two had a great time talking about this stuff and joking around, it was really fun to see them play off each other. I love the fact that Black has asked Favreau for help, and that Favreau is willing to do it. That should make fans happy. Downey then goes on to talk about working on The Avengers and admits a problem he has with working on his films...
Well, I hate everybody. [Laughter] I’m not talking about the cast, I’m not talking about Joss. What I mean is I tend to look at a scene and say ‘This is absolutely impossible, we can’t shoot this, it’s horrible. I can tell you ten other movies it’s been in, I refuse.’ I usually start off the morning by refusing to do what I’ve signed on to do. So I brought that attitude, happily. I just thought How are you gonna put all of us clowns together? He’s wearing a suit, he’s all jacked up, he’s so and so and poor Mark Ruffalo, he’s gonna out do us. And we’re about six weeks in, and I have to say Joss Whedon is nailing it. He’s so smart and so good. And it’s gonna be great. I can’t believe I just said it, I never could’ve believed this but it’s gonna be great
I loved seeing how enthusiastic Downey Jr. is about The Avengers. I had faith in Whedon all along that he would be able to effectively pull it off, but seeing Downey’s excitement was pretty damn reassuring.
What do you all think about what Favreau and Downey Jr. had to say here?