Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Black Steel

According to a new report in Hollywood Reporter, Terrence Howard is out of the upcoming Iron Man sequel, and will be replaced by similarly Oscar-nominated black actor Don Cheadle (Cheadle’s nomination was for Hotel Rwanda in ‘04, Howard’s for Hustle & Flow in ‘06).

If you didn't see the movie, Howard played Jim Rhodes, Tony Stark/Iron Man’s best friend and future armor-clad hero War Machine. Marvel had no comment, but sources close to the deal said negotiations with Howard fell through over financial differences, among other reasons. Marvel, which had wanted to work with Cheadle, then decided to take the role in another direction and approached the actor.

They’re both great actors, so I don’t see this having that much affect on the final movie, though it would ahve been nice to see Howard do more than blink and look pretty like his did in the first. Director Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. will return with Tropic Thunder screenwriter Justin Theroux (a good move - the screenplay was definitely the weakest point of the first one) on board. It's odd though that they can cite financial reasons and in the same breath say they wanted Cheadle all along. One assumes Cheadle doesn’t come cheap either. I guess the only real danger here is confusing people into thinking Tony Stark has more than one black friend.

And speaking of "Black Steel", the better-than-the-original Tricky version:

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