Kevin Feige recently sat down with Empire to talk about the upcoming Iron Man 3 film and how it connects or doesn’t connect to other parts of the Marvel film universe.
First, here’s what he had to say about how Iron Man 3 is connected to The Avengers.
“Iron Man 3 doesn’t feature any of the other Avengers, or Nick Fury showing up, or any of those world-blending conceits that the Phase One films had. You have to keep in mind that Iron Man 3 had been in the works for almost a year, year and a half before The Avengers was released. We’re sticking to the vision for these films, and showing once again that these characters are just as interesting alone as they are together.”
During the conversation, he also talked about what it was like to bring The Mandarin to film:
Early – and very late – drafts of Iron Man 1 featured The Mandarin as a villain. The Mandarin is his most famous foe in the comics mainly because he’s been around the longest. If you look, there’s not necessarily a definitive Mandarin storyline in the comics. So it was really about having an idea. In terms of the Fu Manchu stereotyping that was involved, we never had any interest in that. He’s relentless. Assuming that he’s the one responsible for what happens to Tony’s house, no other villain has been able to strike that fast and that hard at one of our heroes. He’s very much about believing that the world needs to learn, and he wants to bend the world to his vision.