Iron Man 3 hits UK shores from midnight tonight (with the US following next week), and audiences are finally getting to find out what has happened to Tony Stark in his latest adventure. This has got us thinking about the future for Iron Man - not merely his certain appearance in The Avengers 2, but the possibility of a fourth Iron Man film. Given that IM3 is sure to be smash hit, expect confirmation soon that Iron Man 4 will join Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Robert Downey Jr. presumably getting another nice, fat payday for his trouble. Having seen Iron Man 3 now, here are 10 things we'd like to see in Tony Stark's next adventure. Bear in mind that IRON MAN 3 SPOILERS WILL FOLLOW.
10. Focus On One Villain
The latter two Iron Man films suffered from the classic superhero movie mistake of trying to stuff too much in and not quite making it work. If the original film focused largely on Jeff Bridges' Obadiah Stane, Iron Man 2 had dual villains by way of Whiplash and Justin Hammer, and the third film had The Mandarin and Aldrich Killian. Though there was always a clear "main" villain in each of these films, it still felt like handing the reins to two characters diluted the menace; Whiplash didn't seem as fierce, and as for The Mandarin, well, anyone who's seen Iron Man 3 knows how that went... For Iron Man 4, the story should just focus on one baddie to streamline the narrative and give Tony Stark a more palpable threat. One of my main complaints about these films is that I never feel like Tony is adequately threatened. There are, of course, other ways to help with that, too...