Iron Man 3 is, by all accounts, a commendable threequel. It’s a superhero flick steeped in the storytelling ways of writer-director Shane Black, and the first of Marvel’s standalone films to break past $1 billion worldwide under the shadow of Joss Whedon’s Avengers.
That was three years ago, and since then, those involved in the making of Iron Man 3 have revealed some tantalizing and frankly disappointing tidbits regarding what could have been. First up, Shane Black confirmed some months ago that his threequel initially had Tony Stark’s genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist go up against a female villain.
For the sake of context, Black noted at the time that, “there was an early draft of ‘Iron Man 3’ where we had an inkling of a problem. Which is that we had a female character who was the villain in the draft. [But] after consulting, we’ve decided that toy won’t sell as well if it’s a female. So, we had to change the entire script because of toy making.”
Yes, somewhat bafflingly, Marvel’s corporate heads believed that a female version of Aldrich Killian – or some variation of the pyromaniac – wouldn’t have struck a chord with younger audience members. That’s something Rebecca Hall echoed while chatting to Toronto Sun, and though the actress negotiated more screentime with Robert Downey Jr. in particular, it appears Hall had signed for a much greater role in Iron Man 3.
“I signed on to do something that was a substantial role. She wasn’t entirely the villain – but I signed on to do something very different to what I ended up doing,” she told the Toronto Sun. “Halfway through shooting they were basically like, ‘What would you think if you just got shot out of nowhere?’ I was meant to be in the movie until the end… I grappled with them for awhile and then I said, ‘Well, you have to give me a decent death scene and you have to give me one more scene with Iron Man,’ which Robert Downey Jr. supported me on.”
Disappointing, then, but would you have liked to have seen Iron Man 3 play out differently with a female villain at its core? Let us know by commenting below!