Future Oscar winner Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler) is looking at playing either Whiplash or the Crimson Dynamo, according to The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, respectively. Sam Rockwell (Frost/Nixon) is also rumored to be up for the part of multi-billionaire villain Justin Hammer. As Variety describes the film version of the Crimson Dynamo: “a heavily tattooed Russian arms dealer. He’s considered to be an evil version of Iron Man because he battles the superhero in a nuclear-powered suit of armor.”
This is starting to sound like a David Micheline/Bob Layton story…
I love the idea of Rourke getting a role in Iron Man 2. He’s an incredible actor, and much like Robert Downey Jr’s career resurrection in the first movie, Rourke’s comeback after nearly letting his personal demons destroy his career will make for a nice feel-good sidebar story. Personally, I hope he ends up playing Whiplash, since we already saw Iron Man battling an armored foe in Iron Man 1. What do you think?
January 7th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Personally, Whiplash is not quite ready for the big screen. I wouldn’t mind seeing Whirlwind or Blizzard though.
January 8th, 2009 at 6:25 am
Hmmm, Whiplash is apparently a chick now in the Marvel Universe, I did not know that. It’s a tricky question and I don’t think Whiplash would be ready either; they would probably have to redesign the costume too as the gimp/bondage attire probably wouldn’t work well on the big screen.
Crimson Dynamo might indeed be a big repetitive with regards to fight scenes but I’d probably go with that option in the hope that they could work Black Widow into the film and hopefully ‘The Avengers’ when it rolls around. Rourke would be a great choice though, whatever direction they took.
January 8th, 2009 at 8:34 am
Unicorn! Unicorn! Unicorn!
January 8th, 2009 at 9:18 am
Having seen The Wrestler, I’d like to see him play Dynamo or even Constrictor before I wanted to see Whiplash in a move–plus, Constrictor has a much cool costume than Whiplash.
And Mickey Rourke looks more like a Frank Schlichting…
January 8th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Wow… Outside of Obidiah (thanks to the movie) and the Mandarin I don’t even know any of Iron Man’s main villians. As much as I love superheroes, it sure puts things in perspective when you read all the silly villain names people are tossing out here.
Funny thing about Rourke… I read an interview with him a few weeks ago where he said he wasn’t interested in doing stuff like Batman. By that, I’d assume he meant any superhero/fantasy fare. I wonder what changed his mind. Money would be my guess. Then again, he did just play a professional wrestler. No matter how acclaimed his performance may have been that’s “fantasy” stuff too.
January 8th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Once again, some fine casting by the Iron Man crew. Hats off.
I do wish Hammer was more in the mold of the comic character: older, more established. Christopher Lee would have been fun to see, since the character was originally an homage to Hammer Films, and the model for the character was clearly Peter Cushing. But I can see them going with a younger guy, to contrast with the older Jeff Bridges Stane character from the first film.
I hope Rourke plays Dynamo. Whiplash should only EVER be part of a supervillain squad, rather than the main villain. Iron Man should be able to take out a whip-wielding nutjob in about 8 seconds.
Still, I trust Favreau and his team to figure it all out.
January 8th, 2009 at 10:07 am
so iron man is gonna fight an villain robot version of himself? didn’t he already do that?
January 8th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Yahoo reported a search for Stark’s assistant named “Natasha” in the story that named Hammer and whoever Rourke does
January 8th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
D Says:
January 8th, 2009 at 10:07 am
so iron man is gonna fight an villain robot version of himself? didn’t he already do that?
Didn’t Batman fight an evil looking clown already once before on the big screen?
January 8th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Yeah, but not for 2 movies in a row.
January 8th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
But the X-Men faced Magneto 3 movies in a row.
January 8th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Umm… Seeing as The Dark Knight (and Batman Begins, for that matter) are a total reboot of the Burton/Schumacher films I don’t think that’s a proper comparison… A better comparison is how Superman’s battled Luthor constantly in those movies.
January 8th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
From one Shaun to another: Good point, but Magneto wasn’t really the villain of X2.
January 8th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
I think whiplash isn’t strong enough for Iron Man on film. Comics maybe, but not film. A couple of rockets to the face and its all over. You need something either high tech or something BIG. I am happy to here Micky is on board. He was great in Sin City!
January 9th, 2009 at 2:10 am
and SAM ROCKWELL……maybe as HAWKEYE!!!
Sam is an amazing actor and would rock as Hawk
January 9th, 2009 at 9:17 am
I was pulling for the Melter…
January 9th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
How about a Soviet Super Soldiers with Crimson Dynamo at the lead? They could be the Avengers analogue forerunner to the movies… use Dynamo, Red Guardian, and maybe a few of the mutants like Darkstar, Ursa Major… they could even make an x-men reference because of the mutant members…
Or, if Hammer is involved, we need…
Ghost, Whiplash, Blizzard, Whirlwind… his whole crew of stooges… maybe even FORCE!
-MF
January 9th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
I think Crimson Dynamo would look great on the screen.
I’d also LOVE to see Madam Masque and maybe some HYDRA running around!
January 9th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Whiplash has already appeared in the Iron Man movie. It was the name of the jets that Iron Man faced off against.
January 10th, 2009 at 1:17 am
I think the Ghost would be awesome! He could be a super industrial spy/terrorist thinga-ma-jig!
GHOST! GHOST! GHOST!
And hopefully that means Iron Man can swith to his red and silver colors… with a design update of course.
January 11th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Wait. Are people really complaining about Iron Man fighting armored villains? Let’s be real. The guy does NOT have a lot of legitimate villains who are not in armor outside of the two Mandarins. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Iron_Man_enemies
Besides, everyone knows they’re saving Mandarin for a third film after building him up as the backer behind Tony’s problems.
Anyway, looking at that list, Radioactive Man would’ve actually been somewhat interesting, imo. As other’s have mentioned, the Ghost would be another interesting idea being a villain who wouldn’t want to face Iron Man head on.