Of all the big budget superhero films coming out in the next few years, Iron Man has captured the imagination most, even though all we know about Iron Man is that it inspired the third-best Ghostface Killah album.
The reason that Iron Man is attracting so much attention is twofold. Firstly it's being directed by The Bloke From Swingers That Isn't Vince Vaughn, and secondly because Iron Man will be played by Robert Downey Jr. And now for the third reason to become excited about Iron Man – and when we say 'excited' we mean 'filled with the urge to shrug apathetically' – Terrence Howard from Hustle & Flow is also going to be playing some sort of role in the Iron Man movie.
2006 is a bad time to be a superhero – the last X-Men movie was little more that a disappointing copy of the first two and Superman And Son died on its digitally-reduced arse. Worse still, it looks like people are abandoning superheroes for pirates. Pirates! Perhaps that's why so many people are looking forward to seeing Iron Man when it's released in 2008. Well, that and the fact that it thankfully looks like the anti-Transformers. Already our excitement gland has been stimulated by the news that chronically alcoholic superhero Iron Man will be played by Robert Downey Jr, who never fails to add a layer of intelligence to all of his roles that don't involve him appearing on Ally McBeal.
Now, though, another Oscar-nominated actor has been attached to Iron Man – it's Terrence Howard. Terrence was nominated for an Oscar for his role in Hustle & Flow, although his turns in Mariah Carey movie Glitter and that dreadful 50 Cent movie strangely weren't quite as critically-acclaimed. Terrence Howard will be playing Jim 'Rhodey' Rhodes in Iron Man, a fighter pilot who's friends with Robert Downey Jr's character.Why Terrence Howard? Kevin Feige, Marvel's president of production, has rolled out another one of his gushing explanations:
"The richness of the role and complexity of the character seemed to mesh perfectly with the type of passion, energy and emotion that Howard brings to all of his projects."
Of course, this leaves all Terrence Howard fans in a bit of a quandary – now that he's been signed to star in a big-budget action movie, does this mean the end for his rubbish looking country and western biopic?
Read more:
Howard Hustles His Way Into Iron Man – Time Out
[story by Stuart Heritage]