15 Bravest Creative Decisions In Comic Book Movie History

5. The Mandarin Twist - Iron Man 3

Director Shane Black and co-writer Drew Pearce pulled a fast one over comic book fans everywhere with the hugely-anticipated Iron Man 3. One of the main attractions was the prospect of seeing Ben Kingsley playing one of Iron Man's most feared enemies, The Mandarin. After roughly an hour of build-up, the truth is revealed to us, that Kingsley's character is in fact a drug-addicted, slumming actor by the name of Trevor Slattery, a goon hired by the "real" Mandarin, Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), to act as a visual figurehead. Did It Work? Not really. It's an incredibly brave decision to essentially make a joke character out of a major comic book villain, and though the means in which Black and Pearce played with audience expectations was certainly surprising and hilarious, it's not really what the trailer had sold us, nor what fans of the comics really wanted. The backlash was so severe that in the follow-up short film All Hail the King (again starring Kingsley as Slattery), we find out that there is another real Mandarin, surely in an attempt to console those who felt that Black and Pearce completely wasted the character. It was an incredibly ballsy move, and despite the laughs it generated, probably not worth the negative reaction it received. Still, Iron Man 3 made $1.2 billion at the box office and opened to solid acclaim, so you can't knock it too much.