While more people hit their local theaters in the summer compared to the relatively few weeks of the Holiday movie season, the Thanksgiving through New Year's time period is provides a less dispersed and far more attentive audience. It's no surprise, then, that Hollywood's many marketing machines have been turning out teasers for their future blockbuster hopefuls in rapid-fire succession.
We brought you two new Iron Man 2 posters just last week, and yesterday Paramount Studios and Marvel Entertainment surprised us again by releasing their third promo for the superhero sequel. While the earlier posters gave us a chance to see leading man Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr) in his Iron Man suit solo as well as standing back-to-back with his battle-armored buddy War Machine, this newest tease offers the first look at one of the movie's two villains, Mickey Rourke's Whiplash.
Top-tier comic book characters like Superman, Batman, The Joker, and Spider-Man come with a lot of baggage -- personalities and histories defined by years of storyline continuity and just as much public exposure. Considering that the celebrities studios approach to play these characters also cart around super-sized personas, the on-screen mix of the two can prove to be anywhere from irritating to downright disastrous.
Aside from the Grade-A acting and over-the-top special effects, the key to Iron Man's success is that the film's deftly managed to sidestep these pitfalls, owing much to the titular character's relatively unknown status. Hollywood's biggest names are on-board, but they're not struggling with characters already too-well formed in the minds of the viewing public.
In this regard, Rourke has Carte Blanche with Whiplash. While an Iron Man villain since the character debuted in the Marvel comic Tales of Suspense #97 back in 1968, Whiplash never transcended his status as a background player, one of Marvel's 5000-strong character pantheon available for use by comic writers in need of that month's super villain. Alias Mark Scarlotti, Whiplash is defeated early on by Tony Stark aka Iron Man, and subsequently changes his name to Backlash. He's a pawn of the Chicago mob and a failed second rate super-villain. Ultimately, Stark's Iron Man armor, under its own control and not at Tony's direction, inexplicably beats Scarlotti to a pulp and kills him.
How Jan Favreau's film handles Rourke's character -- and that of Justin Hammer, the movie's second villain --will be interesting, to say the least. The director and studio executives have worked very closely with Marvel's writers - most notably current Iron Man scribe Matt Fraction -- to ensure that their movie's don't stray too far off the comic book course. Likely, Rourke's Whiplash won't live to see Iron Man 3, but it's highly doubtful that it will be at the hands of a sentient suit of Stark armor. I would expect a name change to Backlash, however, as well as a realistic twist on the character's origins that brings him closer to Tony Stark - perhaps as a victim of Stark war technology -- than his comic book doppelganger. And as Mickey Rourke's never looked his best in purple, chances are the costume up top is the only one we're going to see when Iron Man 2 opens in theaters May 7th, 2010.
No comments:
Post a Comment