10 Behind-The-Scenes Secrets Of MCU Movies
3. Maya Hansen Was Initially Iron Man 3's Main Villain
Iron Man 3's villains are a source of controversy - the Mandarin twist is generally viewed as a disappointment with Aldrich Killian's role only adding to that. This may be a result of the fact that Shane Black had a slightly different vision for the antagonist initially, here's what he said in an interview with Uproxx:
There was an early draft of Iron Man 3 where we had an inkling of a problem. Which is that we had a female character who was the villain in the draft. We had finished the script and we were given a no-holds-barred memo saying that cannot stand and we’ve changed our minds because, after consulting, we’ve decided that toy won’t sell as well if it’s a female… So, we had to change the entire script because of toy making.
The character, who Black described as "a female Killian", evolved into Maya Hansen, who was supposed to play a far more significant part. In the end, the character received the fairly minor role that can be seen in the final version today.