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Terrence Howard, fresh off an Oscar nomination, was actually the first actor signed to the film and was paid more than anyone else in the cast to play James Rhodes. When he asked for a raise on the sequel, Marvel said no thanks and brought in Don Cheadle instead.
There's a shot of Ivan Vanko hunched over his gear in a grim little garage that's framed almost identically to Tony building his very first suit in the cave back in the original film. It's a nice touch, both men cobbling together something brilliant out of scraps and desperation, just on opposite sides of the law.
Rourke didn't want Ivan Vanko to just be a snarling one-note bad guy, so he pitched the idea of giving him a pet cockatoo to soften him up a bit. When he had to fly back for reshoots, Jon Favreau even gifted him his own bird, so there are technically two different cockatoos in the finished film if you look closely at the crest markings.
The AC/DC track blasting as Tony makes his grand entrance at the Stark Expo is 'Shoot to Thrill,' and Marvel brought it back two years later for the moment Tony faces off with Loki in his tower during The Avengers.
A chunk of the dancers performing behind Tony at the Expo aren't background extras hired for the day, they're actual members of the LA Chargers cheerleading squad brought in to fill out the routine.
The old black-and-white film reel of Howard Stark that Tony watches at the Expo is staged very much like Walt Disney's original filmed pitch for EPCOT. A nice bit of irony considering Disney had only just bought Marvel a few months before this movie hit cinemas.
During the chaotic backstage scramble as Tony pushes his way to his car after the Expo, keep an eye out for Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who gets a quick cameo as himself.
Stan Lee's obligatory cameo has him wandering into the backstage crowd, and Tony greets him as though he's talk show legend Larry King, brushing past him without a second thought.
The senator who spends the film trying to strong-arm Tony into handing his armor over to the government turns out, years later in Winter Soldier, to have secretly been working for HYDRA the entire time, which suddenly makes his push for total control over the Iron Man suit feel a lot more sinister.
When Rhodey is dragged in to testify at the Senate hearing, he mutters to Tony that it's him and he's here so just get over it and move on. It reads as a direct nod from the filmmakers to the fact that Don Cheadle had taken over the role from Terrence Howard, basically telling the audience not to make a fuss about it.
