Preview: Iron Man 3

With the Avengers now in theaters many are probably wondering, where to now? Well the next Marvel Studios film to reach a theater near you is the third and likely final Iron Man film. Jon Favreau is not back to direct as he had issues with continuing post-Avengers. In comes Shane Black, who had previously worked with Robert Downey Jr on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. The film also is bringing back Gwyneth Paltrow and Don Cheadle as their will be back in their roles as Pepper Potts and James Rhodes respectively. Of course, with a new movie comes new actors and new characters to further advance the plot of our title character. It has been revealed that this new film with follow in line with the popular story line called Extremis. When written by Warren Ellis it was intended as a new beginning of sorts for the character of Tony Stark as it re-defines him from his origins as a weapons dealer to the so-called "test pilot for the future." Extremis itself is a computerized version of the super solider serum that created Captain America that was created by an old colleague of Stark's named Maya Hensen. She had help by one Aldrich Killian. Both characters seem to be big parts of the new Iron Man film, as a man and a woman had just been announced to appear in it.

Guy Pearce is a talented actor and can play both a good guy and a villain. It seems likely that he will play as one of the scientists involved in creating Extremis, but they could combine Killian and the villain of "Extremis" in Mallen for Pearce's role. The route they may choose to go with his role is that he creates Extremis with Maya, but decides to be the one and only test subject. Obviously, things go wrong at first but when he comes out of his stupor he recovers and has new found great power. With it, his mind becomes corrupt and his actions become diabolical. He would prove a worthy opponent for Tony both in intelligence and in power as with Extremis his strength would exceed Tony's, but Killian would have the upper hand in speed forcing Tony to take a long look at upgrading his armor. The interesting part of this character is the fact that he is not the lead villain instead Ben Kingsley is, but we will get to that later.

Rebecca Hall has proven herself to be a gifted actress and has begun to rise up the ranks with films like The Prestige and The Town. She is likely playing Maya Hansen in the upcoming sequel to Iron Man. Maya was an intellectual rival of Tony in the Extremis story line but also a potential love interest. With Pepper Potts and Tony getting along better than ever, I doubt they will proceed down the road of Maya and Tony hooking up as that would potentially clog up the film's story. Maya represented what Tony could be without a conscience as she had a penchant for drinking alcohol and had a lack of good morals. She could provide a pseudo-villain but probably not as she would probably just serve as an ally due to the danger that Mallen will provide. Maya will eventually help Tony put an end to Killian in his villainous acts and most likely she will help Tony upgrade his suit with Extremis. If they go that route of giving Tony Extremis to pair with his suit, it will provide us with quite the visual display for when he finally gets the upgrade. Extremis would allow him to react quicker as he will be one with his armor as he can now directly interact with the computer systems and satellites within his Iron Man suit.

Now who could Ben Kingsley be playing in the new Iron Man film? Any ideas? Anyone? I think it's rather obvious despite how much they are denying the rumor that Kingsley is playing Iron Man's nemesis throughout the comics known as Mandarin. Mandarin was the leader of the terrorist group named Ten Rings. Now in the previous two films, the Ten Rings have been alluded to. The terrorist faction that kidnapped Tony in the first film had banners of the Ten Rings logo placed throughout their camp site. The terrorist leader, Raza, can also been seen wearing one of the ten rings of Flame Blast and even Obadiah Stane was seen wearing one of the ten rings. In Iron Man 2, Ivan Vanko receives information on Tony Stark from a representative of the Ten Rings and Justin Hammer break Vanko out of prison with the help of someone from Ten Rings. With Mandarin in place, the film would then become more of a global conflict as he has his hands (or Rings) in many affairs throughout the world. This would cause Tony to need a little help from his friends such as Rhodey (War Machine) yet again. The interesting thing to look out for would be is this when we see Pepper get her own suit as Rescue? I doubt it personally. Fans have clamored for Mandarin for years now, and by adding him into the fold you could easily see him make his way into an Avengers film if need be.