MCU: 10 Fascinating Facts Behind Iron Man (2008)

9. The Villain Was Supposed To Be The Mandarin

As revealed in conversation with Vanity Fair on the movie's tenth anniversary, Iron Man's original villain was going to be The Mandarin. The script called for a trilogy in which Obadiah Stane's betrayal wouldn't come until the second movie and The Mandarin - reimagined as an Indonesian terrorist - would have been like Thanos to the wider MCU.

As a nice coincidence, given his next big Disney gig, Favreau revealed that he saw The Mandarin as an Emperor Palpatine pulling strings behind the scenes:

“I looked at the Mandarin more like how in Star Wars you had the Emperor, but Darth Vader is the guy you want to see fight. Then you work your way to the time when lightning bolts are shooting out of the fingers and all that stuff could happen. But you can’t have what happened in Return of the Jedi happen in Star Wars."

That's probably why Favreau actually announced that The Mandarin would be the villain at Comic Con.

As something of a call-back to that plan, perhaps, when The Mandarin eventually appears in Iron Man 3, the ring he wears on his pinkie is the same one Raza wears in the first movie.