Iron Man is a Marvel Comics character that first appeared in Tales of Suspense #39 in March 1963.
He was created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber (Stan Lee's younger brother), and Don Heck and Jack Kirby.
I used to love Shellhead back in the day.
I'm not so crazy about him now, but I loved the movie.

Iron Man was directed by director and actor Jon Favreau.
John directed the movies Made (2001), Elf (2003) and Zathura (2005) before Iron Man.
He also wrote Made, Swingers (1996) and Couples Retreat (2009).
And he has appeared in several movies and TV shows like Friends as Peter Becker, Made as Bobby Ricigliano, Wimbledon as Ron Roth and interestingly enough, 2003's Daredevil as Matt Murdock's legal partner and best friend, Franklin "Foggy" Nelson.
The movie starred Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, Terrence Howard as James Rhodes, Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane and Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan.

Like several other Marvel characters, Iron Man had been in production hell before Marvel Studios reacquired the rights to the character in 2006.
Marvel got the ball rolling and Iron man became the studios first self-financed film.
Favreau came on board as director and made two decisions that I think separate this movie from other superhero movies, and gave the whole movie a different feel.
First, he moved the locale from New York to the West Coast, which changed the "energy" of the movie.
And two, he let the actors create their own dialogue which basically cut Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow loose and allowed them to really shine.

Robert Downey, Jr....I hate to say "he was born to play Tony Stark", but he sure made me feel like he was. I don't think this movie would have had anywhere near the success it did without him. Downey was deeply involved in the screen writing process which I'm sure helped a lot with the feel of the character as well. Downey threw himself into the project not only mentally, but physically as well, weight training five days a week and studying martial arts.

Of course the rest of the cast was great as well. No matter how good Downey was, without equally skilled actors to bounce his dialogue off of, he would have been lost fairly quickly.
Gwyneth Paltrow playing the Pepper Potts / Tony Stark relationship like something from a 1940s romantic comedy worked really well.
I think some of the movie's best dialogue was between the two.

Terrence Howard as Lt. Colonel James "Rhodey" Rhodes was good as well. I remember as soon as I saw him thinking "War Machine!" but alas that is not to be (see below).

Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane...well...to me the movie's weak point. I love Jeff Bridges, dont get me wrong, and maybe a "calm" villain was what the movie needed. But I usually prefer my movie bad guys to chew up the scenery. Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, Gene Hackman, Willem Dafoe you get the picture.
But like I said, maybe they needed a cooler slicker bad guy to counter Downey's Iron Man.

How did Iron Man do?
It did great. Over $98 million in it's opening week. The movie made over $35 million in just it's opening day alone.
A lot of that had to do, I think, with perfectly executed merchandising and a picture perfect Iron Man trailer complete with Black Sabbath's "Iron Man".
So far the movie has grossed over $582 million worldwide.
Even the DVD and Blu-ray Disc did amazing, making $93 million in the first week of release and $129 million in sales so far.

Well of course Iron Man 2 is coming.
Downey, Favreau and Paltrow will all be back for the next movie, scheduled to be released on May 7, 2010.
Terrence Howard will not be returning, but instead, Don Cheadle will step in as James Rhodes / War Machine. By all accounts, that was an ugly situation.
Mickey Rourke will be starring as Whiplash, well an altered version of Whiplash that incorporates parts of the Crimson Dynamo from the comics.
Samuel L. Jackson will return as Nick Fury. Well "return" as in the first movie, he made a small cameo after the opening credits as Fury .
Of course that was awesome because one, it's Samuel L. Jackson, and two, in the first movie Fury showed up to discuss the "Avenger Initiative".
That of course ties into the 2012 Avengers movie. 
But probably my most anticipated thing here is that Scarlett Johansson will be in the film as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow.
I have waited to see the Widow on the big screen for years.
Let's hope they do the leather catsuit and "Widow stings"and not armor Natasha up.
And will the Mandarin show up?

Of course we had Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, which started the Avengers storyline in motion.
Then Downey made a cameo appearance as Stark in The Incredible Hulk at the end talking about a "team" being put together.
And we had the cameo of Captain America's shield in Iron Man.
Roxxon Oil (if you read the comics you'll know the name) shows up as a logo on a building in the background when Iron Man is fighting Iron Monger.
The pilots in the F-22s have the call signs "Whiplash 1 and Whiplash 2"
The terrorist group "The Ten Rings" is a foreshadowing of The Mandarin.