It’s still kind of surreal that the original Iron Man is now a decade old, eh?
At the time, it burst onto the scene with top-notch action, irreverent (and apparently largely improvised) dialogue and a career-resurrecting performance by Robert Downey Jr. Not only that, but the film birthed the MCU, which has gone on to dominate multiplexes worldwide, recently crossing the $17 billion mark. A big part of that success was Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, of course, which exceeded all projections to claw in an astonishing $1.3 billion at the box office.
Now, Coogler has paid tribute to Jon Favreau’s franchise starter, explaining in a bonus feature on the Avengers: Infinity War Blu-ray how impressed he was with the level of detail put into the Iron Man armor. The comments come in what looks like an awesome roundtable involving notable directors who’ve worked in the MCU.
As you can see down below, Favreau seems to really get a kick out of Coogler’s remarks, especially when he reveals that he was in the audience on the night the film screened at the Arclight. Jon explains that both he and Downey Jr. were incredibly happy with the way the movie turned out and really enjoyed watching fans react to it.
That Favreau would appear in this extra indicates that he’s properly made his peace with Marvel Studios. Despite giving them one hell of a debut with Iron Man, he didn’t have a great time directing the sequel, reportedly clashing with executives on the complexity and tone of the pic. After that experience, he took some time out and returned with Chef, a thinly allegorical movie about his own experiences in blockbuster cinema.
Much has changed in Marvel Studios over the last ten years, of course, so who knows whether Favreau might one day be convinced to return to the MCU in an attempt to recapture the lightning in a bottle that was Iron Man. We certainly hope he does, but in the meantime, we can look forward to Avengers: Infinity War arriving on home video on August 14th.
