Iron Man

Movie
STUDIO Disney
RELEASED 2008

Tony Stark. Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. Son of legendary inventor and weapons contractor Howard Stark. When Tony Stark is assigned to give a weapons presentation to an Iraqi unit led by Lt. Col. James Rhodes, he's given a ride on enemy lines. That ride ends badly when Stark's Humvee that he's riding in is attacked by enemy combatants. He survives - barely - with a chest full of shrapnel and a car battery attached to his heart. In order to survive he comes up with a way to miniaturize the battery and figures out that the battery can power something else. Thus Iron Man is born. He uses the primitive device to escape from the cave in Iraq. Once back home, he then begins work on perfecting the Iron Man suit. But the man who was put in charge of Stark Industries has plans of his own to take over Tony's technology for other matters.

Knowledge

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Rhodey's Ringtone Is a Deep Cut

Next time Tony calls Rhodey, listen closely. His ringtone is a MIDI rendition of the theme song from the 1966 Iron Man cartoon, a tiny nod buried in the sound design that most people scroll straight past.

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450 Pieces of Armor

The practical Mark III suit worn on set wasn't one solid shell, it was built from roughly 450 individual pieces fitted together, which is part of why suiting Downey up for shots took so long.

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Real Childhood Photos in the Montage

The quick flashback montage of Tony Stark's life isn't just movie-magic photoshopping, editor Kyle Cooper wove in genuine childhood photographs of Robert Downey Jr. with his own father, Robert Downey Sr.

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Faking the Arc Reactor Surgery

For the scene where Pepper swaps out Tony's arc reactor, the crew rigged up a prosthetic chest piece that connected to Downey's real torso and jutted out at an angle behind the chair he sat in, with a bright light aimed at the seam to hide the join.

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Why JARVIS Isn't Human

In the comics, Jarvis is Howard Stark's loyal human butler. The film turned him into an AI partly as a nod to that legacy and partly to dodge the obvious comparison to Batman's butler Alfred, since a wisecracking computer voice reads pretty differently on screen.

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Tony Stark Was Basically Howard Hughes

Stan Lee has said he built the original comic version of Tony Stark around Howard Hughes, someone he saw as one of the most colourful figures of his era: inventor, playboy, multimillionaire, and eventually a full-blown eccentric.

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Five Suits, All Comic Accurate

The film runs through roughly five different armor variants, and every one of them is pulled from the comics in some way. The gold-only look JARVIS shows off first is a wink to the classic 'Golden Avenger' era, while the finished red and gold design echoes the 1980s Silver Centurion armor.

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Roxxon Hiding in Plain Sight

During the highway brawl with Iron Monger, keep an eye on the buildings in the background, one of them is branded with the Roxxon logo. In the wider Marvel universe, Roxxon is a shady energy conglomerate that's been tied to all sorts of dodgy dealings.

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Favreau's 70-Pound Celebration

Once Jon Favreau landed the director's chair, he marked the occasion by going on a serious health kick, dropping about 70 pounds before production got underway.

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Thirty Writers Said No

Before the film found its footing, around thirty different writers took a pass at the project and walked away. A lot of them figured Iron Man was too obscure a character to build a movie around, and plenty were nervous about signing on with a studio that had only ever made comic books.