With only six weeks remaining before its release, more details seem to be slowly being revealed about Marvel Studios' Iron Man 3. Following on from the latest official trailer released earlier this month, a new mini-trailer from Chinese television maker TCL Corp. – which partnered with Marvel to promote the movie – offers up new footage that hints at what to expect in the third solo outing for Robert Downey Jr.'s armored Avenger.
While the last trailer showed Tony Stark worrying about protecting Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts from an attack by missile-launching helicopters, the new trailer suggests that he gets to follow that up with a post-attack mea culpa. "I've got a lot of apologies to make," Stark says in voiceover. "I'm so sorry I put you in harm's way. I'm going to find out who did this."
The new teaser also shows television news footage of the attack on Stark's house that we've seen in previous footage, with a news crawl that reads "Stark Issues Threat." So, is the threat in response to the attack on his house, or vice versa? And is it made during the scene from the last trailer where Stark tells some unseen nemesis, "I'm not afraid of you. No politics here, just good old-fashioned revenge"?
Something else interesting about the new clip is that Guy Pearce's character, Aldrich Killian, is included in a montage that's otherwise made up of Stark's allies, which is either a swerve on the part of the trailer editors or the first sign that Killian's character arc in the movie won't match his comic book incarnation.
Killian's suspicious-looking lab where people are strapped down to gurneys seems to support the theory that the Iron Man storyline Extremis is a major inspiration for Iron Man 3, with the Mandarin substituted for the character of the terrorist. But if Aldrich really is on Tony's side and not against him, who knows what other twists will make it into the finished movie?
Certainly, such uncertainty works in Marvel's favor as it drives discussion (and, therefore, buzz) about the movie. In a recent interview with Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, that sense of "anything can happen" was ratcheted up another notch when he talked about showing the finished Iron Man 3 to Avengers writer/director Joss Whedon.
"We have what I think is the biggest, you know, most action-packed finale we've had," Feige said. "I showed the film to Joss Whedon, who is our writer-director of Avengers, is currently working on Avengers 2, and he saw the finale of this and he goes, now what am I supposed to do now? What am I going to do in Avengers 2?"
Confused and teased enough yet? Don't worry, you don't have long to wait before all will be revealed: Iron Man 3, co-written (with Drew Pearce) and directed by Shane Black, will be released May 3.
