WI: Iron Man flopped?
- Thread starter Hadley
- Start date
There can be only one logical outcome in a Iron Man flops world: President Sarah Palin and Vice President Rick Santorum are personally leading a grand crusade against the perfidious Turk in the Holy Land in this alternate 2012 instead of all of us enjoying the Avengers.
Here's something a bit morbid: the film is as it is in OTL but Downey Jr dies before it's released. Could be drugs (though he's been clean for years, Iron Man was his final acceptance back into leading man A-list territory), a car crash, anything.
Iron Man would gain a Dark Knight-like status for Ledger-like reasons but, elephant in the room, how the heck do Marvel make an Avengers movie now?
Iron Man would gain a Dark Knight-like status for Ledger-like reasons but, elephant in the room, how the heck do Marvel make an Avengers movie now?
Willmatron
Banned
If someone younger is cast and they start off with a big villain instead of someone they could work with.
Maybe if they decided to run it against Dark Knight, instead of using it to kick off the summer movie season. Obviously TDK would kill it (Iron Man's competition IOTL were Speed Racer, Prince Caspian, and later Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, not a very strong field to be honest, and im one of the few people who LIKED indy 4).
Well but why would the Marvel people be that rock stupid? They knew that the time it came out would maximize profits and they aren't gonna release it at the same time as the Batman movie.
To be honest, I'm not sure if Iron Man really could flop...at least financially. Any big budget movie today featuring Iron Man should make money even if it is blasted by critics (see The Hulk, Superman Returns). I can see the movie blowing up the box office in its opening weekend before cooling down significantly the following week, with the movie breaking even and being lambasted by critics. But to have it lose money? That would be tough. Either have one of the two things occur:
1. It is released in the early to mid-90's and stars Dolph Lundgren.
OR
2. It is released the same day as in OTL (2008) and stars Eddie Murphy as Tony Stark and Eddie Murphy in a fat suit as the villain Obadiah Stane.
1. It is released in the early to mid-90's and stars Dolph Lundgren.
OR
2. It is released the same day as in OTL (2008) and stars Eddie Murphy as Tony Stark and Eddie Murphy in a fat suit as the villain Obadiah Stane.
Look, I'm just going to put this out there: when Iron Man was first released, my reaction was "Who the fuck is Iron Man?"
I agree that the movie itself would have to be quite different for it to flop: the reason why people saw it and liked it was because it was a good movie. But it's not unthinkable that an Iron Man movie that gets two-star ratings and general advice of "skip it, it's not worth your money" is certainly possible. Superhero movies aren't guaranteed successes: remember, Green Lantern barely made its money back.
I really don't think The Avengers would happen in that case -- or, at least, it'd take longer. Tony Stark's appearance at the end of The Incredible Hulk would probably be edited out at the last minute too.
I agree that the movie itself would have to be quite different for it to flop: the reason why people saw it and liked it was because it was a good movie. But it's not unthinkable that an Iron Man movie that gets two-star ratings and general advice of "skip it, it's not worth your money" is certainly possible. Superhero movies aren't guaranteed successes: remember, Green Lantern barely made its money back.
I really don't think The Avengers would happen in that case -- or, at least, it'd take longer. Tony Stark's appearance at the end of The Incredible Hulk would probably be edited out at the last minute too.
I don't think they could, though, because of 'respect' and the like. It'd be a very big risk to take publicly and in 2008-9's economy the studio just wouldn't risk it.
Was I the only one who heard these stories when Iron Man 2 came out about how Downey Jr wasn't going to be in the Avengers much, if at all? That was why they put those scenes into IM2 about how they didn't want Stark but they wanted his suit. It meant they had to rectify that at the start of The Avengers with the 'we shut down the Avengers initiative but we need to start it up again' schtick, but other than that I don't see what point the whole thing had. Wasn't there at some point some risk RDJ would be unavailable?
No. When the actors were signed they all signed six film contracts. I remember interview where Chris Evans talked about it. At one point they were talking about NINE Captain America films.
Well, cast one of the Wilson brothers (with a dye job) or Ryan "Van Wilder" Reynolds as Tony, and John Goodman as Stane. Or better yet, cast Jackie Chan or someone of his ilk as Mandrin and use a classic Silver Age story, with no real origin. Then put it up against The Dark Knight.
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So what the hell was that scene in Iron Man 2 where they said 'we don't want you, we want your suit' about?