The Rewatchables - ‘Iron Man’ With Bill Simmons and Van Lathan

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Van Lathan would rather be feared and respected after revisiting the Marvel movie that started it all, Jon Favreau’s ‘Iron Man’ starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jeff Bridges. Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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with Van Lathen and Rachel Lindsay. Absolutely. We can find the ringerverse. Mm-pup. We host Midnight Boys. Midnight Boys, of course. Charles Holmes and the gang. My name is Bill Simmons.

Coming up, we're actually doing a Marvel movie. Yeah. This is happening in Van. Hold on to your seats. I can't wait for the Marvelverse to get fucking pissed at me. Five different times. Let's go.

Iron Man is next. What are your building stock? I'm working on something big. I can find. fly. All right, Iron Man, 2008, Robert Danny Jr., basically launches the Marvel movie universe. Not basically, he does. Own by Marvel.

Oh, those characters still existed. Did I ever screw up? I'm 10 seconds in the pocket. Oh, you didn't? No, I think it's important to, for history's sake, to say that this movie is the bedrock of the modern superhero movie. Superhero movies have been around way before Iron Man. obviously you had

Nolan's Batman you had Schumacher's Batman you had Burden's Batman you had to me the pioneering movie of the superhero genre which is Donna Superman

but in terms of the modern superhero movie the way we know it Iron Man is the beginning of it to me my relationship with superhero stuff goes back to the original Batman TV series which was on all the time with Adam West and Bert Ward

Board I had a huge crush on Backgirl. The penguin was in there. A whole bunch of people. Mr. Freeze. I think Mr. Freeze was in there. I never saw him. Maybe he was.

I don't remember him. I think that the villains that I remember were Catwoman. Catwoman. They had Catwoman. They had Joker. They had Penguin. They had Rittler. Ridler was great.

Ritler was on there. So there was that. Then the Superman movie, Superman one, Superman two. And then we all agreed out to talk about Superman three and Superman four. Yeah. Because they were bad. Here's a deal.

this is one of those nostalgia things Superman 4 was the first movie of those movies that I remember seeing because Superman 4 my dad took me to see it in theaters so when I look back at Superman 4 you look at it finally I'm like everyone else obviously bad but like yeah nuclear man right you know what I mean

John Cryer the whole 9 it's obviously not a good movie and the story why the movie is not good is a very deep and detailed story but was that the nuclear war one That was the nuclear war one. Superman takes all the nuclear bombs, throws them into the sun.

For the 80s, our superheroes, which we've discussed before, were Slice Stallone and Arnold and Jean-Claude Van Dam and Steven Seagall, all these people that were the testosterone superheroes. Stallone had too. He had Rambo, and he had Rocky.

We got Cobra right behind you, which I did with Cobra. And it wasn't until Batman came in 89, which we did on the rewatchables, I think like a year ago. Then that launched a second wave. We had all the Batman's. Then we had the Spider-Rae,

Man came in. Spider-Man is very important, too. I mean what I said about Iron Man in terms of launching an MCU, but the achievement of Sam Ramey and Spider-Man and what they were able to do and the amount of money that that movie made, that is a very important film in terms of, you could argue between that and Iron Man. The movie was just such a big deal. But it launched some bad ones.

Some bad Spider-Man movies? It launched some imitators. It launched, what was the house? Hallie Barry one, Catwoman. Catwoman, yeah. It had Daredevil. Daredevil, the first one sucked. Yeah, it had, so there was this mid-2000s era where it already felt like the genre

was burning itself out. Yeah. And we were taking it as far as it was going to go. And then all of a sudden we had this rejuvenation Iron Man, which I watched with my son. My son decided he wanted to watch every Marvel movie going, this was like a year and a half ago. By the way, we lasted like four. And then he's like, I don't want to do that anymore.

I'm going to go try to find girls. But we watch Iron Man. man one and I didn't see it since it came out and I was like this movie is amazing this is such a good well-written well-constructed um just big stars doing their things every piece of it you don't get bored at any point felt that way watching again this week it's really good why can't they all be like this man well what are we doing wrong the stakes of the movies have changed and the higher the stakes get the more you have to do to make it compelling to the audience it's a lot like actually when say the stakes have changed. What does that mean? So explain that to me as a guy who knows barely

anything about this universe. So if I am introducing a comic book character to you, right? So if I'm introducing the comic book character, the stakes don't have to be very high. Yeah. So when it's an origin story, when it's the first time you meet someone, it can be about them overcoming the things that are orbiting their world. A kid gets bit by a radioactive spider. His parents have money problems. His uncle have money problems. He tries to go make the money. He can't. Then this happens and then this happens and this happens. How does he come to terms with himself as a hero?

Kid grows up in France, becomes seven foot five, becomes the number one pick in the NBA. You know what I'm saying? It's a contained story. And, you know, his uncle dies. I'm using the Spider-Man thing. His uncle dies. Now he's going to be a hero. That's how he became a hero.

Yep. So eventually that same kid, who's Spider-Man, is going to have to face off against cosmic forces that are trying to destroy the entire universe. The differences between a hero's journey and the stakes, once a hero is understood and has hero friends and is doing hero things, are different. The story gets more complicated to tell. And in comic books, that's why you have your origin, street level, contain stories, and then you have your big epics and your cosmic runs and stuff like that. So what happened with Iron Man is this is essentially a movie about a genius who has the world at his fingertips and really. realizes that everything that he was doing in his life was wrong.

He goes from being... He's a moral reckoning. A moral reckoning, a profiteer to a hero. Anytime the story is about how somebody becomes a hero, it's very, very simple to tell. And you don't have to do as much. But when the story becomes about other characters interacting with them and other villains and all of these things, your margin for error kind of goes down a little bit. And Marvel has been able to do that with diminishing returns in some cases.

cases, particularly now, but leading up to what they were able to accomplish an endgame, it was pretty amazing what they did. Yeah, I think one of the things I like about Iron Man is there's a real authenticity to it. Every piece of it, like the fact that they cast Robert Danny Jr., who wasn't exactly smoking hot at the time. But they gave it to Favreau, to direct it, who directed three movies. Right. You know, and like two unconventional choices, they go, they get Terrence Howard.

Yeah, Gwyneth to play Pepper Potts. by the way we can't wait to talk about her you like that well i have a lot of pepper pot thoughts yeah um but and then jeff bridges so they got a real a list or to be the villain but you know when you do the research on how they made the movie it takes like almost 18 years to actually make it and you know they kind of stumble into the right decisions

now to me everything feels so orchestrated and every decision that's made is made with the thought of how it's going to be perceived 15 months from now and all these different ways and it really does seem like a franchise. It seems like a turnkey, just in general, all of these movies. And I think I'd miss the days when we could still have stuff like Iron Man. Are there still movies that kind of organically become cool,

but yet have the backing of Marvel DC Comics? But you feel like it was an actual authentic journey to get to the point? I would be interested to know what you think about Gardens of the Galaxy 3 because I saw it last night and I thought it was amazing. And the reason why I would say that is because that's the last movie that James Gunn is doing for Marvel. So he's not going to be with Marvel anymore. He's the head of DC now. And because of that, he was able to do some things in the film that don't have anything to do with the next movie that they're setting up or the next saga that they're going into.

So it seems like a story that's about the characters instead of the story being about the world. And I think that's kind of what you're talking about. The fact that you have Favreau on this and you have Robert Downey Jr. on this and you have Terrence Howard on this, you know that they had a legitimate take that they were legitimately inspired to tell this story in a very

specific way. It wasn't like, hey, plug and play, blow some shit up and then everybody's going to go eat popcorn and have a good time. They had a way that they wanted to make this movie. They had a tone in mind. They had a redefinition of the character in mind. They challenged the audience a little bit. They changed who the villain was.

Right. They challenged the audience a little bit with how Tony Stark acts in who Tony Stark is and we have to trust that it was going to be super entertaining and it was. Now, I give you an example of something. Mandelorian season three. People didn't like it, right?

A lot of people didn't love the Mandalorian season three. The story That's a TV show? It's a Star Wars television show. Okay, got it. It's a Star Wars show. The story was influenced by the audience's reaction to one character. I'm sure you've heard of Baby Yoda, right?

Sure. So Baby Yoda becomes a Runaway hit. That's the baby version of Yoda. Okay. It's a different character, but yes. And so the studio goes, they don't want to put them in season three. They really didn't want to. The studio goes, no, you got to do it.

We have to sell toys. Yeah. You got to do it. We already put them in a video game. You got to do it. You got to do it. And now, when you watch it, it's disjointed because the franchising, like, is butting heads with the story that the creators want to tell.

And, like, at the beginning of these things, it's always about what they wanted to do. And then, you know, you lose that after a while. I mean, Favreau didn't stick with Marvel because of this. Like, Josh Whedon, who's an asshole, didn't stick with Marvel because of this. Tarantino even had a cup of coffee deciding whether he might be involved in Iron Man in the late 1990s. Facts? Yeah. That would be crazy.

We'll go. Tarantino, I think that would have been ambitious. Yeah, look, it's also a very late 2000s movie. And I mean that in a good way. Right. We have Middle Eastern villains. and we have weapons and we have people

double crossing and you know I thought you were a good guy wait you're actually working with the other side and just all of these themes that feel very kind of Bush Cheney era

right it's it's and it feels more overt now than it even did in 2008 yeah a war on terror sort of underpinning there by were we to blame for the terrorism are we to blame

because we're arming the terrorists These are 80s, 90s, 90s, 2000s themes. These are when the conversation became about the Iraq war, Iraq. I'm saying it like I'm from Louisiana. I like that. No, I don't know what that's the issue. The Iraq War.

When the conversation became about that and it became about the Taliban or about whatever in the 2000s, we were just learning that, you know, this happened in Afghanistan with the Russians and these people were involved in and fucking Cheney was there then and Rumsfeld was there then. So all of this talk about, you know, what America's role in arming the rest of the world is and arming enemies to Western democracy was something that we were talking about every single night because American kids were dying over in Iraq and Afghanistan. Downey, it's a lightning and a bottle thing. And he's somebody that I was within the whole ride in the 80s.

Yeah. I tough turf with James Spader I don't even think that's streaming That's a really good kind of crazy 80s LA high school movie He's in weird science Weird science Less than zero

He was on SNL during the worst SNL season of all time When Lorne Michaels came back to the show And decided I'm gonna have this young cast All of a sudden they have Robert Downey And Anthony Michael Hall on it And they're like It's still teenagers I think

And it just goes off the rails He's in back to school With Dangerfield Really funny character But at that point, he just seemed like the kind of handsome odd guy, quirky, who's going to be in 80s movies. He's in the pickup artist. Less than Zero was the big one. Less than Zero was a big one.

And then in real life, he started to bleed into the less than zero character that he plays in that. Who dies? That's a really, really, really distinct 80s movie that I don't feel like we could do in the rewatchables. That's one of those, if we did that on the rewatchables, Craig would be like, I don't know what just happened in that movie. Why are we doing this? Well, look, there's a Brett Easton Ellis era of life to where I'm reading that stuff and that stuff is really being played out. Oh, yeah, it's the 10-year cocaine era. Yeah, it's like when you read, you know, I'll read everything that he, that he, that he's written.

So when you read that stuff and then you look at the commentary that it was about, that that's what it was. And all of those guys were going through it at the time. There's a movie that my family really loves that's in there, do you remember chances are oh yeah that came a little bit later oh was that a little bit later chances are was he was the lead there where yeah we don't do movies where people's bodies get swapped after they go to heaven anymore that was a big deal in the 80s like that should come back yeah and then he was in john to be good with with anthony michael playing a high school quarterback who at that point he was probably like 24 and he was in michael that movie didn't work but it did

introduce us to the greater room with thurman then he has some issues comes back with chaplain in 1992 and gets Oscar nominated. It's like, oh my God, he's back. And he kind of battles through the 90s. Natural Born Killers, he's in that, two girls and a guy, U.S. Marshals, which wasn't, was supposed to be the big fugitive sequel, never really got there. And then by the 2000s, he settled into like, he's on Allie McBeal for 25 episodes.

But that was a big deal when he was on me. I know, but it's, this was supposed to be an A-list movie star. But he was in the draft. He was in the Leo, like, kind of. this might happen for him and didn't. The Leo shit just keeps on with you. You just love Leo. I'm just talking,

Matt Damon Affleck? Like, Downey, that was supposed to happen for Downing. Right, you're right. This is what I'm saying. There's something, and we were talking about it a little bit, but the reason why the Allie McBill thing was such a big deal

is because people were so happy for him. He was battling. Because he was rock bottom. So hard. Like, he was battling. We know, we see, we think that we see it now, right? with celebrities that are,

particularly actors that are going through substance abuse problems or have issues, Robert Downey Jr., for an extended amount of time, felt like 15 years. Everybody was just wishing the best for this guy, and he was making some monumental mistakes. His addiction had a complete control on his life and a stranglehold on his talent.

And so when he was on Ali McBill, when that was working, I remember just like everybody was talking about how good he was on the show. Mickville was a big deal at the time. And how happy they were to see him. And it seemed like he was sober and doing well. But he wasn't, he wasn't doing well.

He wasn't. And he will pop up and give, like, remember that movie? Well, he's in Wonder Boys. He was in Gothaica. Black and White. He was in Black and White, the James Toeback movie. James Toeback movie. Like, he popped.

And every time you see me like, God, this guy's a great actor, but it was just, it wasn't happening. So he got his shit together, like, I think 2003 range. And then he made Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss, Bang, in 2005, which became this really beloved critically acclaimed movie that didn't become a monster movie, but it's like a weirdly important movie that we'll probably do on this podcast at some point. But it wasn't until 0708, Zodiac, which is loaded, Fincher,

all these great actors, and he's as good as anybody in that. And then he has Iron Man and Tropic Thunder the same year. And all of a sudden he's one of the most famous actors we have. It is, I can't even think of the sports equivalent of the journey that he went on. it's it would almost be like I'm trying to think of some

basketball player or football player who maybe it's like Josh Hamilton that Texas Rangers outfield that's exactly what it is except he wasn't able to sustain if it was like 10 years later

and then he started that's exactly who it is because Josh Hamilton was the same story remember HBO real sports yeah whether or not Josh Hamilton was he gonna ever be able He's his only worst enemy

his own worst energy and then Josh Hamilton comes up and for like two years he's making mantle but all the guys from Downey's era you know like the Mike Tyson and Gooden and Strawberry and Lynn Bias, like all the people that battled drugs,

either they barely made it or they were kind of never the same after they got, or they died. River. Or they died. River. Like they died. So Downey, I think part of what people responded to with Iron Man, although it was an awesome movie,

was they were so delighted that he got watching somebody reach their potential belatedly 20 plus years later. It's like, holy shit, this guy's fucking amazing in this movie. To the point that I'm not even sure who else could have been this guy. If it's Matt Damon, it's a different movie. Leo was too young. Clooney, maybe,

but I don't... There's something about, like, Downey, the Miles that he had in real life. I think Tony Stark kind of needed, right? So, I was at the bus stop because I was in L.A., but I was... This had how long ago this was. I was still riding a bus at this point around Los Angeles.

Yeah. I was at the bus stop, and I was at Hollywood and Holland, waiting for the bus to take me over to Burbank to Capricorn. And they don't have it anymore, but they used to be a little crawler underneath the thing at Hollywood Highland that would give you the news, like a fake-ass time square

whatever, like a little digital crawl. And it said, Robert Johnny Jr.'s cast to star in Iron Man or whatever. Look, whenever this was, it wasn't 2008. I think it was just, it must have been 2007 or 2006 when I was just, I got out of here in 2006. And I said, Robert Don, and I was like, huh?

Interesting. Yeah. And this is what I'll say is I didn't know how they were going to play it. And what went through my mind at first was Demon in a Bottle, which is a very famous run of Iron Man where Tony Stark deals with his alcoholism. And so I thought, are they going to do a whole meta thing where they have Tony Stark in this movie? And he's dealing with his addiction and he's dealing with all of this stuff. And Robert Donnie Jr. is sort of the conduit to the audience by. being that we know who he is, right?

They didn't. What they did was they based the entire tone and the entire feel of the MCU around one guy's performance. Like literally, his performance in that movie defines what the MCU became and what it wanted to be. So are you giving me that this is the most important performance out of all these movies, speech?

Without a doubt. It's, to me, the MCU is the, single most the MCU is the single biggest achievement in filmmaking is the single biggest filmmaking experiment that's ever

happened. 22, 24, 25 movies, whatever it is now, the amount of cultural capital that it has, the amount of money that they've made, how it's changed probably for the worst, how it's changed film going in the world,

in America, period, over the time that it's, that it's been dominating, as dominated as it is. And all of that, everything, every single thing that the MCU has brought, all of those stories, all of those characters were framed around one guy's performance. Like, it was a complete tone center, the fact that it's, you have real emotions, but you have a lot of comedy. Yeah. You have characters that you understand, that you know that the DNA of the characters, there, but the actors get to play them in ways that might not be so...

Slightly flawed super hero, but not over the top. But not over the top, right? And not trying to really... I mean, he got a little preachy at the end, but not really trying to preach to you. Like, all of the movies after this, even if they were a little bit different, there's still the DNA of Tony Stark in them to me. Like, all of them. Well, think about this.

2008, what's the other movie that came out that year that changed everything? The Dark Night. Right. So you could... You could argue that, I mean, those are probably my two favorite superhero movies. Totally different movies. Right. Right.

But I think those are my two favorites out of anything. Probably that and Superman, too, which we haven't done in the rewatch. Oh, Superman 2 is fantastic. Superman 2, and he fucking decides to be Clark Kent. That dog. It is, nobody has ever been more in the palm of the hand of the person they were dating than Clark Kent. He's like, yeah, I'll just give up the Superman thing because I'm in love. What a loser.

I can't wait to talk about that movie. Okay. but he didn't want to kill her with his super penis. But do you remember the scene? Is that what it was the underlying thing? No, that's the thing. He had like super semen? Remember, he becomes human

and then the first thing they do is have sex. So you think they couldn't have sex? I think that he... Was he afraid he was going to turn in a Superman when they had sex? He wanted to be with her and he wanted to make love, but he didn't want it to come out of the back of her back. He didn't want to break her spine with him.

Yeah, he didn't want to kill her. You know what I mean? He likes to. because he likes her a lot. See, this is proving that the superhero movie franchise that should have happened. I've said this to you before is Plastic Man. Because he could have, he could pull and bend his appendages. Yeah, sounds like a lot of women.

Who, who's not dating Plastic Man? A lot of people are in a Plastic Man. Absolutely. Well, if he was Plastic Brother Man, then they might be into him. If he was like, if it was like, Jarrell, and then they might be into him there. But, but like, Super Bowl. Superman, too, think about that movie. Like, remember he loses his fucking powers

and he gets his ass kicked by that guy in a diner, right? And you're just like, Jesus Christ, I feel so bad. Those three people, and I was kind of attracted to the female one, the three. Oh, you like, you're talking about the... The one who's played by Sarah Douglas. Zod, yeah, yeah.

I kind of liked her. She was dope. Yeah. But, like, in, like, in this movie, like, you know, you have the Dark Night, which is grounded by this amazing once-and-a-lifetime performance. The best movies of the century so far. It's great.

It's fantastic, right? But a completely different take. And filmmaking, in terms of superhero filmmaking, the Dark Night is a bigger deal than Iron Man. It still is a bigger deal than Iron Man. It still is. I agree. However.

Iron Man's a little more influential. Way more influential. Iron Man is just much more influential than the Dark Night is in every single way. Downy. That's it. He makes Iron Man and Tropic Thunder in the same year. Bigs movie star in the world. Then you look at the end.

his IMDB, and he basically, other than he makes due date with Zach Galfinacus, like three years later, other than that, he's basically just in the comic book universe. Sherlock Holmes. Oh, and Sherlock Holmes. Yeah. Cashing from 2010 on, he's just cashing checks. And I think... It made a crazy amount of money.

I think that's what got him at the end. He is an actor's actor. Right. And he wants to be respected as so. Because, you know, he did other movies where he's obviously going for the awards, the soloist, remember that joint? Yeah. So he did the soloist.

He did... What's the one where he was with Robert Duvall and Rob Duval's his dad? He did the judge. That's one of the only other ones he made the last 10 years. Right. So I think for him, you know, Stark became somewhat of an albatross. Because they were leaning on Tony a lot. They stopped making Iron Man movies after Iron Man 3, but he was in Spider-Man.

He was in Civil War. They were leaning on Stark a lot. And so, you know, it gets to a point to where paying a guy. a shit ton of money, but he also wants to do some other roles. He probably wants one of those little golden things, and you're not going to get one from marble. We'll take a break, and we'll come back and do the quick history of Iron Man.

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Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant. 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. Okay, so you know all of this, or most of it, but Stan Lee, intentionally created an Ironman to be unpopular with the readers because he's doing it during the Cold War

and he created it. He said, I got a hero, represent that to the 100th degree. It was the war, was military, he was a weapons manufacturer. He was rich. He was an industrialist.

I thought it would be fun to take the kind of character that nobody would like, none of our readers would like and shove him down their throats and make them like him. And guess what happens? He becomes really popular.

Stanley, good at stuff. Stanley and Jack Kirby did. Stanley, decent. decent of things. Rest and peace. So it doesn't go until 1990 where they decide

hey, let's do a movie. Universal Studios buys it first by 96, 20th century Fox has it. Guess who starts

sniffing around? Our guy, Nick Cage. Nick Cage tried to do every comic book movie. Yeah, I think in 97 Nick Cage was just grabbing scripts.

1998, Tom Cruise did a little sniff. They always wanted him. Yeah. All of a sudden, Tarantino in 1999, he's sniffing around. It goes to New Line.

The New Line, too many Marvel superheroes in development, so they get it. They talk to Josh Whedon. They talked to Nick Casavetes in 2004. None of it happens.

The film rights returned to Marvel in November 2005. And Marvel decides we're going to create a studio. And this will be the one and we're going to bet on ourselves here and the rest of this history. $500 million line of credit from Merrill Lynch. It's really an independent movie. It's really an independent movie. Right. And then they get this deal with Paramount who co-produced it,

this planned six-picture deal, but then Marvel, one of Iger's greatest moves, he buys Marvel. So now they have to split the next six. So Disney got the Avengers and Iron Man three. They're already, Paramount got Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, the first Avenger. And that was it. And then Marvel was owned by Disney. Marvel was on by Disney. All of this happens because the Iron Man,

because they bet on themselves, which is crazy because they bet on Robert Downey Jr. And the guy from Swingers. Have ever told you my CD Hollywood promoter story? No. All right. So I don't mean to call this guy CD Hollywood promoters because that's my friend. Okay.

I'm not going to name him, but he's a friend of mine. I'm at his place. Is it Craig? No. But, you know, I know a lot of the Hollywood promoters out there to do their things. We've talked about these guys before. These have got guys made entertainment.

So I'm hanging out with a friend of mine. And he is a man of leisure. So he has a whole apartment at the W. Residences. Oh. Actually, a great guy. Has a whole apartment at the W. Residences that is just like a gaming apartment. Okay.

Meaning you go in there and they were like fucking like roulette tables. and all of this, like some real Mollies game shit, like, like TVs everywhere. And you go in there, he'd be like, yeah, I got 16 parlay. Let's see what Carmelo does right now.

Really, it was like a gambler. It was like a fella's den. But there was a separate apartment, his whole apartment just for gaming. So when I was in this apartment one time, just hanging out, I looked up on the wall and there were like a framed pictures

of different Marvel movies. It was like a framed picture of Iron Man, a framed picture of the incredible Incredible Hulk. Like up there, posters. Posters of the movies. I'm like, what do you, why do you have these? It's like, oh, I've invested into these movies. Like, you, I'm like, you invested into Iron Man? He's like, oh, dude, let me tell you. It's like, yeah, I gave them X amount of money. Like, I invested into this film. And then it's funny because I was in Vegas, the weekend that it came out, and I went into the theater in Vegas to see if people were reacting to the movie to see how who was going to see it. And I went to the theater. There was nobody in there on Saturday. And I was like, fuck. I'm screwed.

I'm out of bunch of cash. And then he's like, his partner, there's another friend of mine, says, hey, man, it's Vegas on Saturday. Who's going to the movies? Right. So he goes, all, cool. And so then he comes back.

And on Sunday, he says, I go to the arc light to try to go see the movie. And you couldn't get in to see it. And he goes, I'm rich. You know what I mean? So that show. shows you, and me and Joanna Robertson. They're just grabbing money from different...

They're getting money wherever they can. Me and Joanna Robinson, who has a fantastic book about the MCU coming out, who's over at the Ring of Verse. Like, I told her that story. They were getting money from where they could to make these films because it was no sure bet. If Iron Man fails, the world culturally movies is so much different right now. They get Fabro, who loses 70 pounds.

so he can be in it. I was like when directors put themselves in their own movie, but it's not too ostentatious. He's in it. He's driving Downey around. He wanted to make the ultimate spy movie and his dream was if Robert Altman

had directed Superman was what he went into it. Interesting. Wanted to make Iron Man the story of an adult man reinventing himself after discovering the world was more complex and disappointing

than maybe he thought. And then he chose Downey because, quote, the best and worst moment of Robert's life have been in the public eye, he has to find an inner balance to overcome obstacles that went far beyond his career. That's Tony Stark.

Guess who didn't want to hire Robert Downey? Marvel. They were like, what the fuck are you doing? We're not doing that. Right. So Fabra said, no, this is who we're hiring. This is happening. So then I pay him 500K.

And then another thing, they were spending so much time on the story and the action and the suits and whether stuff worked that the script part of things had kind of fallen through. There's like a lot of improv in this movie. Right. Like Downey and Poucho are just coming up with scenes on the fly. Bridges wasn't a huge fan.

We'll talk about it. Oh, I can talk about it now. Bridges called it a $200 million student film. Shit. And said, I'd never heard that. I kind of like having the pages in front of me when I know what I'm at. So that was a thing. Downey said, what I usually hate about these superhero movies is when suddenly the guy that you were digging turns into Dudley Duhray.

And then you're supposed to buy into all this. let's go do some good Elliot Ness stuff. What was important for me is not having changed so much that he's unrecognizable when someone used to be a schmuck and they're not anymore. Hopefully they still have a sense of humor. They kind of did that. I felt like Tony Stark,

I feel like the character the whole time made sense. Yeah. Sometimes in these superhero movies, something I'll have, this switch will be, and then the guy, oh, I've magically transformed. I always felt like he was Tony Stark in this. Our guy, Terrence Howard, is in this? Yeah.

who has been in some really good movies but never made it and had a lot of personal issues. So it's interesting that he was like one of the big deals because he's... He was the most famous person. Scalding hot. Right. You're probably the most successful person in the movie at that time, right? Scalding hot. Like straight off hustling flow.

Crash. He's scalding hot at that point. So having him in the movie, even more than Robert Donnie Jr. And Gwyneth Paltrow gave the movie some like automatic credibility. They get bridges, they get Paltrow. Bridges too, of course. Favre wanted Pepper and Tony to feel like a 1940s comedy kind of sexual attraction, not like a real one. $140 billion budget made $585.8 million.

Eight highest in 2008. Our guy Roger Ebert, four stars. Wow, Raj. Downey's performance is intriguing and unexpected. At the end of the day, it's him who powers the liftoffs, separating this from other superhero movies. Raves about Downing that says by building on that, Favro found

his movie and it's a good one. I agree. Let's do the categories. Most rewatchable scene. This movie, first like six minutes of this movie fucking come... I love when movies just start and are really good right away. Just give it to you. Yeah. Let's go.

Let's do it, man. We're... Wait, we're in some truck in the Middle East. Let's go. Let's do it. fucking, let's wear the movie, dude. Let's fucking make it happen, he's hitting on the driver, somebody's asking about Maxim magazine, oh, the thing's blowing up,

wait, we're going backwards. Oh, montage of who this guy is. It's great. Great six minutes. Sir, I have a question to ask. Yes, please. Is it true you went 12 for 12 with last year's maximum cover models?

That is an excellent question. Yes and no, March and I had a scheduling conflict, but fortunately the Christmas cover was twins. Anything else? You're kidding me of the hand up, right? Is it cool if I take a picture with you? Yes, it's very cool.

Great six minutes. Obviously, Iron Man's first flight, not his first flight in terms of when he gets this. I'm talking about the Mark I suit. When that suit first comes out and fucks over these guys that are from the Ten Rings organization. Are you giving us another scene? Yeah, that's a different rewatchable scene.

Like the whole first part of the movie, you're talking about the assault on Tony and all of that stuff, Well, they're going backwards. I had that scene. I called that the time to activate the Iron Man suit gimmick. Okay. Where we get our guy Yinson, he dies. But he wants to, he's good with it.

So yeah, my family's already dead. My family's waiting for me. I like that the suit kind of gets demolished and goes in nine different directions at the end of it. But if you, that three minutes, it's like, who's not watching that and enjoying it? Yeah. It's just really well executed as an action sequence. So the interesting thing about starting the movie that way with action and then going back and then

coming back to that is that nobody knows who Iron Man is. If we're being real, Iron Man is a B-list comic book character. Right. Right? So when you go to see a Spider-Man movie, not so much now or any of these other films, Spider-Man, Batman, now they've done it to death. Part of the charm of those movies is the origin story to figuring out,

like, well, not figuring out, to seeing why this iteration of the character becomes who they are. Used to be. Now, I never need to see Bruce Wayne's parents get killed again. I never need to see a real act of space. I'm good with that, too. In this movie, you have a hero that people aren't as connected with. They're not as familiar with them.

Super rich guy. So if you don't set the stakes of the movie like straight, you might lose people. So right away, you get this whole fucking thing, then it comes back to it and it was a brilliant way to kind of kick the movie off to give people some meat on the bone at the beginning. I like

this. It's not the most rewatchable, but I do like when Pepper Potts sends the Vanity Fair reporter packing. I definitely have that on my list. You want to hold to accesses, Eric? Jesus. That's Jarvis. He runs the house. I've got your clothes here. They've been

dry, cleaned, and pressed, and there's car waiting for you outside that will take you anywhere you'd like to go. You must be the famous pepper pots. Indeed I am. After all these years, Tony still has you picking up the dry cleaning. I do anything and everything

that Mr. Sark requires, including occasionally taking out the trash. Will that be all? Because that's pepper, that's... Pepper gets to cook. They clear out. They get... Pepper got a clear out. That was established. That's the first time we saw pepper. Yeah. It's one to try to

Play pepper. Yeah. As pet, like, look, look, this pepper, bitch. This is when we try to play pepper and act like pepper. Like, oh, what, you still pricking up his dry cleaning? Like Pepper's the secretary. It's like, nah, I take out the trash, bitch. Yeah, including you.

How are you going to talk to me when you're wearing the dudes? How are you going to talk to me? Who must you think that you are to talk to me, pepper pots like this? When I'm coming up here, I got a plan B waiting for you right now. Who are you to talk to me? Nice little dig at Vanity Fair, too. Nice little thing at Vanity Fair. Shout out to Joanna again.

We're like who. And we get to see that Pepper ain't to be fucked with. I love that scene. I did too. Tony's press conference is fun. The Pepper replacing Tony's heart. Great scene. The Puss.

It's a fucking awesome scene. And the way they do it with the special effects is really convincing. About the hole in his chest and whatever? Yeah, just her reaching in there and she's getting in. And you never for a second. are thinking, oh, this is totally fake, this is C. Chad, whatever it is. I just really like that. Oh, oh, there's pus. It's not pus. It's in a plasma discharges from the device, not from my body. It smells. Yeah, it does. The copper wire.

The copper wire, you got it? Okay, I got it. Okay, you got it. Okay, you got it. And I don't let it touch it. Ah, it's when you're coming up. That's what I was trying to say before. Okay, now make sure that when you pull it out, you don't pull it at the, at the end of it. That was It just pulled out. Oh, God. I was not expecting. Don't put it back in. Don't put it back in.

What's wrong? Nothing. I'm just going into cardiac arrest because you yanked out. I thought you said this was safe. We got to hurry. Take this. Okay. Nothing about this movie is it looks fantastic.

It's great. Iron Man is a character that could easily look fucking hokey dog. I think fucking steel with Shaq. You know, things came a long way. Iron Man could easily look hoax. Is it still with Shaq Rock Bottom for superhero movies? It's pretty close. way up there. Shout out to Shaquil and his whole family.

Yeah, what's interesting is Shazam? Shazam is actually not that bad. I don't mind it. It's like a C-minus D-plus. Still has its charm, but that's a bad movie, though. No, steel's enough. Yeah. Another one, Tony test drives the flying the new suit thing. That's awesome. I like the ice build-up. I like when he lands and he just goes through every floor in the house. Doesn't know the suit. Yeah. Crushes the car. Tony wiping out the village when he flies back, he zooms back to Afghanistan. almost get shot down.

The training exercise callback jokes good. The Pepper versus Obadiah is good. I like when people are trying to download something on a computer. And it's like 90 seconds left. It's like download 68%. Never fail. Never fail. It's always works.

It's one scene. It never fails. I was so happy when he came home. It was like we got him back from the dead. Now I realize. breaks my heart. He's a complicated person. He's been through a lot.

I think he'll be all right. It's great. You're in there, you're looking, you're trying to download it, you see the person walking. You have to pretend. It's like, what are you doing in there, Bob? Nothing, nothing.

I'm just checking out my emails. And then him versus Ironmonger. Bridges at the end. Which, I don't know, if we had 2023 technology, I don't know if that seems better or worse. Probably better. It's fine.

This movie does have a great villain. The movie, the Obadiah in this movie, who's a character called The Ironmonger, is a villain that Iron Man fans will be familiar with, but the reality of it is the villain in this film is Tony's past. That's really what the villain is. Tony's past is the villain. So the only thing that Obadiah represents is all the uncertainty and all the double-dealing that was in Tony's past by being a weapons manufacturer.

So there's not like a real villain in this. So if they're offlaws in the movie, it could be that the final fight here is a little bit anticlimatic. But it's not like, nobody's like, oh, 20 minutes left in Iron Man. I can't wait. Yeah, I'm more excited to see the beginning of it than the end of it. Of course. Yeah.

What's your most rewatchable scene? My most rewatchable scene is the entire sequence with Tony as a captive. It's insanely well done. That is when the kid. character of Tony Stark as we know him in the MCU who's created. You have Tony in there with somebody who is a victim

of his technology. Remember, when the guy says that we call this the walking death because the shards end up and kind of finding their way through your system and getting to your heart, those are most likely Stark weapons that he's talking about, right?

Yeah. And so you have that, sort of a victim of Tony, save his life it changes Tony's perspective on what his stuff is doing. Also, you get an all-time, stupid, fucking villain move. This guy is the greatest weapons engineer in the history of humanity. And you're going to give him a way

to build a weapon for you. What makes you think this motherfucker is not going to build a weapon to fuck you over? I have that in picking it. It's definitely a stretch. But isn't that Obadiah is trying to get Get him to build something like the whole point of it? It doesn't matter though

I mean I know that that's a bad plan The point is not a it's a terrible plan Like Obadiah must have thought Tony was a punk bitch That he wasn't going to try to defend himself But he ain't no punk bitch I think my favorites My favorite part of this movie is the first 40 minutes Yeah

But I like when he activates the suit Because I like when superheroes don't totally know What they're doing with the equipment there's a show in the 70s that... Where's American Hero? Yeah. It's a great show.

It didn't totally hit. Hold on, don't try to... Don't... Don't try to... I don't know if you knew a greatest American hero was. Don't... There's a show in the 70s to me.

Okay? Like, you know, Bill, if it's about superheroes, I'm fucking with it. I feel personally attacked with the greatest American hero. Like, I used to have a shirt with the symbol on there. Okay.

The iconic things... You were... William Cat's biggest fans? I love William Cat. Butch and Sundance the early years. Yeah. I love William Cat. Great theme song.

We had some great theme songs in the mid-70s, late 70s, early 80s. Just some classics. What's Age the Best? I Am Iron Man was ad lit by Robert Downey Jr. that day. Never knew that. Yeah. It's only the ending of the movie. I really like all the scenes with Downey and Terrence Howard,

and I can't, we'll do it later what happens to Terrence Howard and Iron Man too. But I really think they have a, I believe in the friendship. Because sometimes they'll shoehorn in like, oh, this guy's his loyal friend. But I actually liked all their scenes together. I wish I had a pepper pots in my life. I know it's a movie and they don't really exist. But wouldn't it be great to just have somebody that, if you're a single guy, why are you making that look at your face?

Because I don't figure out where this is going. So, a single guy. Right. He's got this great relationship. Do you don't think I can lay in the plate? I'm curious, too. You're saying you want a platonic female friend? Wait, so, wait, wait.

I want to hear, I want to hear, like, I want to see where this is going. He's obviously disaster. He has 12 backs of models. He only got 11 in the one year, but he had twins, so it counts as 12. He's this rich guy. She's cleaning up. She's kicking out Vanity of Fair Reporters. Okay.

But she just likes him. She's got his back. She defends him. But she's also staying single waiting for Tony Stark to realize. Like, it's me. I'm Pepper Potts. I'm the one. Craig.

Just trying to get a ruling on this. Hold on. I'm not done. I haven't put the lady gear yet. To me, this is true love. Pepper Potts is like, this is my guy. He's going to see it someday. Right.

I'm just going to keep putting the time in. He goes down to get her a drink. Never comes back. Did she hold it against him? No. She's like, you know what? This is still my guy. Pepper Potts.

I'm going to be Pepper Potts dark. This is going to happen. Okay. And she's just waiting and and then he finally realizes it. To me, this is a great rom-com trapped in a superhero movie. Can I get a ruling on this one, Craig? So you essentially want a woman

to just kind of wait around while you just have a great... While you do whatever you want for all the time? No. Billionaire, Playboy. I just... And you know what guys? I still believe in true love. Right, exactly, right. She's pining for him the whole time. Also, really good assistant. Because the CEO of the entire company...

Took his fucking heart out and put it back in. Like, just pepper pots was just killing it. Yeah, she's dope. I really like, we talked about when you're downloading something, how that always works in a movie. You know what else works? What? The hero walking in the hot desert waiting to be saved.

When has that scene not worked for like 90 seconds? Fucking Moses. I mean, Capricorn 1, that's the entire movie. It's just those guys walking in the desert for an hour. The mad money guy is really funny. I love that guy. The Jim Kramer guy. That's a weapon company that doesn't make weapons.

Sell, sell, sell. Tony Stark's house. Wow. Is that the best superhero house of any house? Would you still go with Bruce Wayne's Batcave? No. And I keep trying to tell you that this is one of the, the movie changed everything. Wayne Manor was cool because it was like old and gothic and like the castle where all of these white people didn't live for generations and they were the best white people ever.

They like actually a part. And I think it was Batman Begins where they say, hey, this is where we're, where the Waynes used to help smuggle slaves out during the Underground Railroad. Oh, no. Motherfucker, we get it. They're nice people. Can we just, you know, it's not, it's very, it's not, it's unlikely that they've been five or six generations of Wayne's with all that money that are fucking amazing.

But this house was not Wayne Manor. It was alive. And it had a cool AI and you could move stuff around. It was like an anti-Wain Manor. And apparently it was only 10 minutes from downtown L.A. even though it was in Malibu. Although it was a Malibu. Yeah, people are like, I'm going to shoot on over to Tony Stark's house.

Like, it's immalible, but it's like, it's very far. Right. And they're zooming around. Yeah. Like where do you? It's great. There's no traffic. But it's like a fantastic house, like a really cool house.

Bald, bearded evil Jeff Bridges has aged the best. Yeah, he was cool. He's one of the only times he's played a villain. It's like this and The Vanishing. Oh, The Vanishing. That was a great movie. He normally goes hero. Craig's in on The Vanishing.

I couldn't stop thinking about it the whole time. You wanted him to turn to the vanishing guy? Hello, Pepper. Pepper. That is just really good movie. Have you drank the coffee? Middle East terrorists as bad guys in the 2000s. Who are the bad guys now if they do this movie?

2003. Who are the bad guys that nobody is going to, probably aliens? It's going to have to be aliens or something like going to be mad. The Nick Fury cameo was a big deal in the nerdverse. It wasn't a big deal. Like, I nut it. Did people stay for the credits? They knew how to stay?

They knew not to leave. You know, I don't know why I stayed, but I did stay, and I remember, like, an audible gasm. Like, Kaleegas like, what the fuck just happened? I'm like, you don't know? Like, that was Nick Fury, and he said Avengers. Samuel Jackson, do you know how much,

do you know how much went into that moment? Like, do you have any, do you know the story? Oh, I have all the research. Yeah, you tell it. So the ultimate version of the Marvel universe is a different version than the regular Marvel universe. The regular Marvel universe, all the Marvel comics, they did the Ultimps.

And when they did the Ultimvents, they reinvented all of these characters. Nick Fury was white before for a long time. But in the Ultimates version, he's black with an eye patch. He looks like Samuel Jackson. Samuel Jackson. Well, didn't they kind of use his like that stuff? They did. And he was cool with it because he's Samuel Jackson.

Well, he's like, I'll get paid eventually. No, but that's not what happened. It was kind of what happened. Samuel Jackson brought it up, but then he said that he would be cool with it if when the character made any type of film appearance, if he could play the character, which is what happened.

All of that stuff goes into it, and then that's actually on the screen, and he says the Avengers initiative, brilliant right away. Well, they kept it silent. They had it was like they would release the movie when they did all the screenings and stuff. That wasn't in there,

because there were rumors about it, I guess for a while. Right. That, to be honest with you, should be one of the most rewatchable scenes. Like, because maybe the, because that showed you

that there was a North Star that they had, I remember just freaking the fuck out when that happened. It took up like a fantastic movie. It was like the buttercake after you get the steak at Maestro. You don't think things can get any better, but then here comes to buttercake.

You know what I'm saying? The 1800-calorie buttercake. Yeah. It's so good. They kept it a secret. Rumors were on the internet immediately. and Kevin Faggy had to basically take it out of all the preview prints so then nobody knew it was actually happening.

So what sports moment would you compare to? Oh, good question. Was this like Birdsteels the ball gets Isaiah? Yeah, poor business. Is it like some college, Hail Mary, like the Cordell Stewart, Hail Mary? But it has to be super meaningful, probably more like the Doug Flutty Hail Mary, because that won a National Championship. Was this a Hail Mary or was this like maybe it's like a boxing thing?

Maybe it's like some knockout of it. You know what it is? It's George Foreman. I just saw a big George for. Over, over Michael Moore. You're supposed to say that with me? What the fuck? I went to the premiere.

It was George. It was George Foreman after Michael Moore because George former was planning it. But it still was such a punch. I can't believe it happened. I can't believe it happened. Even though it happened. That makes sense.

The composer, I'm not going to try to say his name. Favro had this vision of heavy metal music and guitars for the movie and the composer of that. It's got a real energy of this movie. It just feels a little different than the traditional old school. Or like when we talked about when we did Batman, when that weird print scene, Jack

Nichols. The bad days. The day the 80s died. Yeah. What else do you have for what's age the best? I have something that age the best. I have something that I've never done on the garage before. Yeah.

Something that age the best and the worst, the same thing. What is it? The MCU. The MCU aged perfectly because it was able to, like, grow in significance, in relevance, and dominance, but then it hit some snacks. And now it's kind of a chore getting through the movies. And so this being the first film of the MCU, the MCU itself aged amazingly until it didn't. I'm going to put pepper pots down a second time.

I fucking love her. You know, Gwynis, the white shadow's creator's daughter. Bruce Paltrow? I love to forever, yeah. Created the White Shadow? Yeah, fuck yeah. My favorite show. Bruce.

It's on, it's on at 7 a.m. On Channel 6 every day. You can watch it every day at 7 a.m. Who's a? Black Danner's her mom. Bruce Paltrow is a producer. Right. No, he's showrunner slash creator of the White Shadow and saying elsewhere.

Okay. That's why I always defend Gwyneth when people start dumping on her for goof and stuff. I'm like, fuck you. What do, like, what is... Her dad created the white shadow. I never understood the backlash from Goop. What, what do people get mad about at Goop about? Because it's expensive?

Yeah, and people don't like when celebrities start telling you how to live your life. That's never a good idea. So, real quick. And make money on it on top of that. Could we go watch this Goop show? Yeah, I guess it was a show about Goop. I don't know what the fuck it was. But anyway, it was fucking Griff Paltrow on there.

Yeah. And they were telling people, like, how old they were internally. Yeah. That shit was useful. let it do anything. Good food. They have a goop cafe. It's pretty good.

Yeah. I don't like you. My daughter goes there and eat you. Yeah, you look like you eat at the good cafe. I don't need the goop cafe. My daughter and my wife do. The Big Kahuna Burger Award for best use of food and drink. That's easy.

What do you have? The hamburger. Oh, God. Yeah. Like, that's an easy one. Press conference and a cheeseburger. Because I know motherfuckers who just got out of jail. Yeah.

And it is, you think that the first place that they go is like, hey, let me call Sheila. That's not where you go. Hey, bro. Hey, man, let's go by Popeyes real quick. It's always a cheeseburger. In oceans, when Brad Pitt gets out, doesn't he immediately go get a cheeseburger? Yeah. It's always, hey, man, let's stop at. Like, they still got over or they still got the, what would you do when you got out? Trying to think what my food would be. This is like a different, where am I at, though? What's just say you got dry, you're in? I'm in Baton Rouge or I'm here. No, you're in L.A. I'm in L.A. Um, damn. Would you go fast food or would you want like a real dinner?

Well, I don't want to wait, right? Because I'm not going to, because think about it, if you go somewhere to eat, then you're going to have to wait. You know what I'm saying? I think I want to go to five guys because I could smell them grilling all the burgers. Five guys, maybe. Just really, like, soaked that in versus like a. Maybe Shachshack.

Tony Stark went to Burger King. It was a different time. Those burgers mattered then. Now those burgers have been. If he was a true LA guy, he would have gone to In and Out. It was a miss. But you got the weight. In and Out.

He could stand there. The whole of the secret menu of In and Out. Cool. So you're a non-in-and-out person. That's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Everyone needs to settle down within and out.

The Denton Thieves Benihana, scene stealing location, and the Great Shock Order Award are both the same. The Malbuhaus, when the Vanity Fair Reporter wakes up, and there's just windows and shit, and then we get the wide shot. It's like, whoa.

Look how rich this fucking guy is. Jesus. And Jarvis is waking her up. Like, you hear Jarvis. Great rich guy stuff. We should put that in what saves the best. Like elite rich guy stuff. Yeah. Then it's like a little garage in the basement

where he's just got all these, I don't know, Lamborghinis. We never got to look at all those cars. Can I be honest with you though? I actually had this at what's age the worst than I forgot to bring it up. This is one of the last movies where being a billionaire is cool.

I had that in what stage of the world. We haven't done what stage of worse. Oh, we haven't done what stage of worse. Yeah, sorry. But no, this was, this is the 2010 thing shift. Yeah, this is like the lack. Because remember before this, we've talked about this before. Yeah.

If you were a billionaire in a movie, you weren't like necessarily the bad guy. No, people would root for you. but this like might be the last movie we're being a billionaire school um butch's girlfriend award for the weak link of the film we talked about it already though the ending's fine it's not great i don't think the showdown with jeff bridges and downade it's not it's fine it's all right what stage the worst iron man two is not great you don't like it no iron man three is good iron man three is see this is where i get controversial with the nerds

with the rest of my nerds i like iron man three a lot people don't like The nerds sound like Iron Man 3? A lot of people. I didn't get that a nerd illustrated. I didn't read that article. You haven't seen it. Well, we don't send you the unedited version. Oh, they've all stopped listening anyway at this point.

They're so mad that I'm on the Iron Man podcast. I'm the host of the show. What do you guys want from me? But no, they, like, Iron Man 2 doesn't seem good now. Like, it's a very important movie, but it's not a good. Iron Man 3, I love, but it's a controversial movie. Daddy's facial hair has aged the worst for me. Yeah, I like it.

like if Craig came to work tomorrow and was like, here's my new facial hair and it was a mustache with a little Ful Manchu thing but then this like kind of half-square thing that attaches like what the fuck is that? They were trying to go comic accurate. They toned it down after, like way down.

Because if you watch Tony in subsequent movies, he still has, like Tony Stark having the, what do you call the mustache goate combo? Is that just what you call it? People call it the Fooomanchu, but it's actually called a Van Dyke. But so... Foo Manchu is just the,

I think the mustache that comes down, but there's no beard. Okay. So they, it was aggressive and wide and very dark. It got better over time.

That's one of the things that got better over time. It wasn't great. The corporate tie-ins are really shameless, but also it could have put that in one stage the best because it's so funny

where it's like, here's, oh, it's the Burger King bag. Oh, look at this awesome Audi. Yeah. Just keeps out of it. The Audi thing was fucking nuts, bro.

Yeah. The Audi thing, because I was in L.A. and LA is the first place that I actually saw Audi's. We have them in, like, then nobody had Audi.

So, Audi's were everywhere. Well, Audi, that was a 70s, 80s car that everybody had problems with. My family had an Audi once. He was in the shop like half the time.

So then it kind of hit rock bottom and bounce back. So, Yinson, Stark's going to die and he's like, cool. I have this electromagnetic, fake heart I've been working on. I'm just going to throw that in there.

good news, I saved your life. Now the shards can't. What's going on with this whole part of the plot? So remember he knew how to do it because he'd seen it before. Okay, so he's cutting. He's a great doctor. He's cutting Tony's chest bone out by himself. No nurses, nothing.

And then takes Tony's heart out and puts this thing in there and it's like, and we're good? What about the part where a guy builds a mech suit? out of scraps in the desert. I think we're going to have to... You think that's less realistic? I think we're going to have to, like, you know, air on the side of disbelief here. Fine.

What else do you have for? What stage is the worst? Myspace. It gets said, like, right in the... Right in the middle of the... You know, Zuck was probably so fucking mad

when they said that. Yeah. It's probably called somebody over there, smacked their mouth, and was like, yo, why are you talking about fucking MySpace? You know,

take this gun, kill yourself. Is that your Mark Zuckerberg? That's how I think Mark Zuckerberg is. I just think he's, yo, what the fuck? I think Mark Zuckerberg, he puts on like a real control face. Yeah. And then when people on around, he's fucking flipping tables over it. He's doing all kinds of.

He's going to come after you in the metaverse. You're going to be in the metaverse one day. He's going to try to kick your meta ass. Probably will. But no, so MySpace age the worst. Also, Tony is definitely a pre-Me too. Yeah, he's hitting on the driver immediately. He is every woman.

He's pre-2. He's definitely pre-two. Like the vanity fair, like, yeah, I want to fuck you. Like, yeah, I want to see you wake up. The vanity fair one, she just wakes up and it's like, it's time for you to go. And then it's like, get her out of there. And then Pepper comes in, he's immediately weird with Pepper. Who works for him?

Yeah, that probably, there's some probably HR questions. There's probably some issues there. It works for him because he's handsome and suave and all of that. But yeah, those are the two things that just jump out of it. He loved the white shadow, so she put up a lot. the Ron Burgundy Flew to Word for Best Time for a P-break I don't know this movie moves pretty well

Yeah I don't know I didn't really Yeah it moves too fast Like you're gonna miss something important It's like very lean for the most part Was there a better title for this movie now Best quote Is it better to be feared or respected And I say

Is it too much to ask for both It's a good one Good one Put that in your high school yearbooks Stuff people the SAS Hottest Take Award. Do you have a hottest take for this movie? I do, but it might be problematic.

Well, we can always edit it out. For some reason, after this movie, Marvel refused to cast a light-skinned black man in a major role. Is that true? This is a great hottest take. I'm just going to stay silent as you keep delivering it. I thought about this last night, right?

So Terrence Howard, I thought about Terrence Howard is a lighter, lighter-skinned black guy. What about light-skinned brothers? And I thought, you know, it didn't work with Terrence Howard. And then they replaced Terrence with Don. Don's great friend of mine. And Dawn is fantastic as Rody. It brings a humanity, a strength to Rody.

And then I started to think, you know, did they ever go back to the light-skinned brothers? And I'm thinking they didn't. I'm thinking about just all the movies that have... So it's past the coincidence point because they've made like 18 of these. Just, you know, and I never really advocate

for the Lyskin brothers to get, because for a long time it was just all about them. Yeah. It was all about everything. It was about, you know, motherfucking Shamar Moore

and all of that stuff. And it went on and there was a point where we was like, when's going to be our time. Then Wesley, they brought it back to everybody brought it back to the,

But I think Marvel, I looked at it, I'm trying to think even now, Marvel didn't go back to the Ferriskin brothers. It's like they judged everyone based on what they had with Terrence Howard. So that's my hottest take. First of all, fantastic hottest take. That's exactly what we're looking for. Okay. No, I'm like, that was a hot one.

When somebody has to ask, I might not be able to deliver the hottest take. That's where I want to be with the hottest take. Yeah. When there's trepidation even before the hotest take. I'm just thinking about that last night. I was like, huh. You know, it's not like a ton of roles to choose from.

And there have been light of skins. It's justice for my light skin brothers. Man, they haven't really gotten a chance to shine and marvel like that. But how many movies have there been? So there was Falcon, who's played by Anthony Mackie. There's Mordow who's played by Chilatil

in Dr. Strange. There's Brian Tyree Henry, who's in the Eternals. There's I'm trying to think of more. Obviously, Black Panther. Black Panther, I mean, you know, probably not going to have very many

Lyskin brothers. But, you know what I mean? You have Black Panther, you have, you know, just over the time, I just never went back to it. I was thinking about that. I don't know why that popped in my mind last night. They popped in my mind last night.

I don't think it's something that they're purposefully doing. My people come in all shapes. It's a great how to stay. Colors and all of that. like, you know, there's shades. I'm like, you know, just, Julia still has the hottest take title for saying the girl from knocked up,

she just had an abortion. Jesus Christ. That was, that's the hottest we ever got. It got to 300 degrees for that one. It was great. She delivered it perfectly. Wait a minute.

Yeah. What does she want to marry Seth Rogen's character for? It was a great angle. Okay. George Clooney, mid-2000s. This is my hottest take. He makes good night and good luck, whatever. Siriana, the good German,

Ocean's 13, makes Michael Clayton, he makes leatherheads, burn after reading. He needed one of these, I feel like. Neal of what? He needed,

like Clooney and Iron Man, if he had said, you know what, I'll take 500K and I'll do Iron Man. They would have taken George Clooney over Robert Downing, I think. Can you think of reasons why George Clooney

might have not wanted to make another superhero movie? Yeah, let's get back. Let me do this correctly. It almost ruined his career. Yeah, that's the thing. Same for Ben Affleck. Dared have almost ruined his career.

He went back. He went back. You know what? You're a competitor. You're an athlete. Come back. Get the fucking helmet on again, George Clooney. George Clooney, I could see... He said he made leatherheads. I could see him as Tony. Litherhead sucks. I could see him as Tony Stark. It's still better with Robert Johnny Jr., but there's something he could have brought to them.

I think Clooney could have pulled this movie off. You think so? Yeah, it's basically Danny Ocean with toys. Yeah, but Danny Ocean with like, Danny Ocean is like... And some damage. Way cooler. like Danny Ocean is like super like almost cool to the point of dripping off the screen cool but I think he could have done it for us. Some acting awards quickly.

The Ruffalo Hannah Rubenek Partridge overacting award. They knew and they let it happen. Don't you call me lady. I come in here. I give these things to you. Give me all you got. Give it all you got. I treated you like a son.

You fucking stab me in the heart. Fuck you. To any 10 rings, leader kind of dials it up. Yeah. Well, I mean, you gotta be scary. Yeah, he's dialing it up. Best that guy award. The any team, that guy's name is Raza.

And then Clark Gregg, I think, is our winner. Yeah, Colson. A lot of people know he's Clark Gregg, but also he's kind of that guy. He became Clark Gregg because of him. Maybe he became Clark. Yeah, but he definitely is that guy. Dan Wiener's Award was tough. There wasn't anybody who came in off the bench throwing 100.

It just went nuts on this one. I can't think of any. Yeah. Casting what ifs. Fabro wanted Sam Rockwell initially because people like Sam Rockwell in the mid-2000s. And then Downey killed it on the screen test and that was that. Favro's first choice for Pepper Potts was not

Quinn Patro. It was Rachel McAdams. Oh. Or she made her way into the MCU anyway. Turned it down. Interesting. She came back. She came back.

She's Dr. Strange. Christine. I think it would have been better to be Pepper Potts. Maybe I'm crazy. Would have been fucking way better. Yeah. Diby Pepper Bots, but. Terrence Howard,

highest paid actor in the set, promised a three-picture deal, shut it out of the sequel. Marvel's never commented. He's commented. Favro was reportedly unhappy with Howard's performance and they had to reshoot some stuff.

And Howard made a big stink about it. And then later admitted that they offered him a lower salary for the sequel and that's why he didn't want to do it. He once said about it that the contracts in Hollywood are not worth the paper that they are printed on in reference to what happened with him and his relationship with Marvel over this role. He was not happy. So why were people unhappy with his performance? Because I know nothing and I really liked him and I thought he was good.

I liked it. But did you think he was good? I mean, Cheetos is different. Cheetos is different and Don is, Don owns Roeley now. Don seems like now you can't even think Don't. So maybe they're thinking like, all right, we don't want to make nine movies with this guy. He has some baggage. I don't understand.

I don't know. I don't know what else was going on. But like at that time, you know, they even tease War Machine in the movie. Like, not this time, but like when he looks at the seat, so you thought it was going to be, you know, him in Iron Man 2. Recasting Couch. We could do better with the Vanity Fair reporter. Like, we could have, that could have been Rachel McAdams. That could have been Scarlett Johansson.

That lady was popping at the time. What's her name? Leslie Bibb. Bibb. She's fine. Yeah, she could have, 15 years later, you know, her, she never... Who are you putting in it?

I'm saying, let's go big. Let's put Scarlett in there for three scenes. Scarlett Johanson? Yeah. But then you blow your wild on Black Widow. Well, I don't care about Black Widow. I just care about this movie. I'm only casting this movie. I don't care what happens with Black Bulletin was too big of a deal to put her in that movie at that point, right? Yeah, little, well, it's like, whoa, she's in

this as the Vanity Fair Reporter? We're loading up. Another one, I wouldn't want to get rid of my girl, Gwynna. but Jessica Chastain would have been interesting for Pepper Potts. Would have been really interesting? I love her. Redhead.

Was she around? Yeah, she's around. Had never really made it. The Zero Dark 30 or whatever. Was that the movie she blew up in, right? Yeah, so it was Zero Dark 30. That was a couple years later. But she was in that movie.

The first time I ever saw, remember movie Lawless with Tom Hardy. Yeah. So that's the first time I remember seeing it. Oh, no, no, no. She's in the help. Isn't she? That's late in the help.

That was in 2011, I think. Yeah. But she's around for a couple. Maybe she wasn't famous. But she was, wait, wait, no, that's not. You know, tree of life is the first time I saw her. You remember that stupid joint? It was kind of crazy.

Remember Brad Pitt? And it was, uh, what's his face? I didn't think that movie was good. That's also 11. Tree of Life is 11? Hold on. Tree of life? Yeah.

I'm looking at her right now. Chastain Pitt, Sean Penn. So what, what's Chastain doing in like, 08? What was, what happened with Lawless? When did Lawless come out? I don't know if Chastain was around, even zero. 2012, Lawless. Okay, so the first time I ever saw Jessica Chastain was in that tree of life.

Yeah, she wasn't famous enough yet. She doesn't really... Stolen was the first time she was in a movie we would have seen. The other one I was thinking, it's probably too really for her is if Beth from Yellowstone was pepper pots. Beth from Yellowstone was dope. I like her. Because I've been watching, I've been scouting flight for the rewatchables, and Beth from Yellowstone is in flight. She plays like the photographer.

Basically, like, test driving Beth from Yellowstone as a character in that. And I just really like that. Flight is a crazy fucking movie. Flight is fucking fantastic. Flight is a crazy movie. For me, it's a rewatchable, but I don't know if that makes me a bad person. I love that movie.

That movie was so nuts. Flight is so fucking crazy. As you know, Denzel is in my Mount Rushmore. Half a internet research. We need to take a break, actually. This episode is brought to by Pure Michigan. In Grand Rapids, every moment feels like a scene worth replaying, every riverside stroll, every slow afternoon sipping small batch brews,

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Spend $250 in your first campaign on LinkedIn ads. Get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com slash rewatchables. Terms and conditions apply. All right, half-ass internet research. I just enjoyed this little tidbit. Favreone Downey. We're giving a tour of SpaceX by Elon Musk.

as they were working on this movie. Interesting. They made Mandarin the villain and the sequel. Kind of. Which was supposed to be the guy in the original. I don't understand the nerd verse elements of this. So the Mandarin is Iron Man's biggest villain.

Yeah. And he is the leader of the Ten Rings organization. So what they did in the second movie is they took a character called Aldrich Killian, who is the head of advanced idea mechanics, this really kind of like, evil think tank in Marvel. And they made him the Mandarin.

They had Ben Kingsley as the Mandarin, but he was a fake Mandarin. So he looked like the Mandarin. He can't trust Ben Kingsley in any movie. He was a fake Mandarin. Okay. And so then the actual Mandarin, who's the leader of whatever

was causing all the problems, was Aldrich Killian, who was played by Guy Pearce. Now, they actually came back to this. because later on in Shangxi, the leader of the Ten Rings organization is Shangxi's father. Okay, and he has been for thousands of years. He has the Ten Rings. And then Trevor Slattery, who been Kingsley played in Iron Man Three,

comes back as his kind of funny actor type of role. So it was the Mandarin, but not a comic version of the Mandarin who has the Ten Rings. That was in Shangri, not until like 14 years later or 15 years later. where you stand up Ben Kingsley like overall I think it's amazing and he was really funny in the movie too in Shankshi like we're really funny he's in our movie

what movie? The movie we're doing in a couple in a couple I think three months search you for Bobby Fisher oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah he's got gonna ask

that is gonna be a one for us right he's fucking really demolishing that kid emotionally he's fucking a jerk in that one in a little bit he's also in species which is like

one of the great bad Wait, what? I don't remember him in Species. He's the leader in Species. Tim, Madsen, Mark Helgebergerger. Natasha Hintrich? Yeah. That's the fucking alien or whatever? Craig, have you seen species?

I'm going to do species for rewatchables just for Craig's reaction to species. Species was crazy. It was like a big deal because she was so hot or whatever. I can't remember. I only saw it one time. I don't remember Big Cuseling. I really know. So there's a lot of stuff about the suit and the stages and we don't need

to go in all of that. This is interesting, though. It was filmed in LA because Favreau thought too many comic book movies were set in the East Coast and thought L.A. would be a better setting and that prompted

at least a couple of L.A. movies after that. The advertising stuff, we have, Sega had a video game. There's a big Super Bowl spot. Hasbro did the toys. We had 7-11 LG, Worldwide Burger King,

Audi over and over again, all the comics, like they really executed a master giant big Iron Man plan and it worked. MTV Movie Awards that year? Yeah, they did a lot. Donnie showed up. Funny sketch. DVDs, also the last real peak of DVDs, they sold $4 million in the first week.

Jesus. They sold $9 million total and made $160 million just on the DVDs, not included in Blu-ray. This was the last film special effects expert Stan Winston made before he died, is a big deal for people who know about special effects people. The Iron Man, the first thing, weighed 90 pounds, that first suit. The actor asked Tony what happened in Afghanistan during the press conference is Billy Owish's father. Or not the press conference.

What? What scene was that? Yeah, it was a press conference where he goes to talk to everybody. It's Billy Aish's father, apparently. Listen, this is half-fasternit research, but that's what popped up. This is the only Iron Man film that features no martial arts fights? Huh, yeah. He gets big into martial arts after this.

The Vanity Fair Reporter and the comic books works for The Daily Bugle. Yes, because the Daily Bugle is the paper of record in Marvel. But you can't use a Daily Bugle. Right. Because that's Sony. For Iron Man's arrow movements, they had these animators studying skydivers performing in a vertical wind tunnel to figure out all the

how he's going to look and the fact that's fast, slow, all that stuff. And it's funny, it's like, all of that stuff, like, added to the realism of it. The fact that he wasn't flying smooth and he's stabilizing himself, even when he's an expert flyer, he's flying from his repulsors

and it looks like he's, you know, fighting against the physics of what would be like, yeah. Apex Mountain, Downey, yes. Yeah, for sure. Favro, yes. Wait a minute. Could I make an argument...

For Mando? That... No, not for Mando. Can I make an argument that Downey's Apex Mountain is Avengers in-game? No. You can't. Actually, I'm rejecting it. It's the biggest, it's like the...

The whole point of Apex Mountain is... Not only is this a career mega highlight, but you have more juice after the movie than ever. Any time of your career. So you have more juice after you do this. After he does this movie, the world is his fucking oyster on that point out. That's fine.

By that, yeah, for sure. And I say the same for Favro. Favro was hosting fucking table for five in the late 90s and scrapping it and making movies like made. All of a sudden, now it's like, oh,

I am now an A plus list director who made this monster movie. I like it when he makes small movies, though. I love chef. I love Made. Chef's good. Chef is good. You like Made?

I can never get there with Made. I like Made. I like Made just because Made is just a fucking dissertation in early 2000s cinema. Yeah. Puff pops up in that bitch. Have you seen Made Craig? No, love chef though.

Yeah. Chef's good. Chef's good. I like chef. Terrence Howard, probably not. It's probably a couple years earlier. Hustle and Flo. It's in that mid-2000s, hustle and flow.

Yeah. He's in Crash. Paltrow, no. No. Bridges, no. The Apogi Awards, I think yes, because I don't know what those are. I don't think those are.

words. This is the apex for those. The Ten Rings, terrorist organization? Shangxi. Raised pizza? From New York? Yeah.

He goes and gets raised pizza because he's a fucking rich guy in Malibu and he can do shit like fly raised pizza. But Raised Pizza, Favro Love that was the second movie he'd put raised pizza in because they had an elf too. Hollywood comebacks. I was thinking about this,

whether this was the biggest Hollywood comeback of all time. And I don't, I think the The answer's probably no, but I think it's in the discussion. Well, what, think about one that's bigger. So, Brandon Frazier? I was thinking Affleck getting the Argo, Argo being best film winning the Oscar and making a ton of money. You're such a homer.

Elizabeth Taylor had a couple. This guy almost died. And you're talking about Affleck made like a couple of bad movies and he came back. He was done. His career was over. I'm trying to think. How would come back? Mickey Roark?

The wrestler? Is that like a life-altering movie, though? I mean, he was dead in the water. He hadn't worked in years. You know what I mean? Okay, but, okay, let's stay there, though. So, it's kind of a like, so Mickey Roer, Brandon Frazier is a big comeback.

Who else? It's got to be somebody who was a very famous, something, and then hit Rock Bottom and came back. Hit Rock Bottom and came, man. I think I don't know enough about the 50s, 60s people, but I think people like Betty Davis and Rita Hayworth, Elizabeth Taylor. There was a lot of those in that era. Wasn't Brando kind of like on the outs for a while before Godfather?

Is that true? He was. Yeah, that's a pretty good one. Yeah, I mean. Yeah, that's a good one. Brando's a good one. There's got to be more because, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I got one. I got a good one.

Fantasy's just going to come flying through the window right now. He's just going to break through. He's like Iron Man. He's like, oh, my suit's activating. I got a classic one. Yeah. Michael Key, not bad either. Travolta is the best one, though.

Travolta is the best. Because even when Russell Westbrook was coming back on the Clippers, I was calling him Vincent Vega Westbrook of my podcast. Comic-Con, Apex Mountain? Oh, man. So Favreau goes there in 06 before they even made the movie, and then in 07 just to like wet everybody's appetite and spray some Iron Man juice around.

And people, like, lost their fucking minds. Because that's what happens at Comic-Con. You go there and just... Spray some iron. Iron Man juice. Come on everybody. Get excited. Here's my.

90-second trailing. The nerds like, oh! Right. Oh, it was concerned. Um, you know, Comic Con,

yeah, maybe. I've been to Comic Con a bunch of times, and there was, there's a part of what Comic Con like lost its soul. Yes. But Comic Con with, that's like South by Southwest.

But Comic Con with the Avengers was a fucking big one could be, yeah. Malibu Houses and movies, I think this has to be number one. I can't think of it. Maybe houses in general in a movie. that's fucking, it looks like Dr. Evil's compound crossed with

the beach house. It was like its own character. It's unbelievable. Best racehorse name. Jericho? Good racehorse name. Tony Stark? What if it was just a horse name Tony Stark?

Pepper Potts is a good resource. Pepper Potts is a great Philly name. Yeah. That's good. Ironmonger? Yeah, but then there's like an evil. You feel like Ironmonger's going to fuck with the other horses. It's like coming ahead of the thingies.

Pickin'its. I can't wait for this. Okay. I have so many for you. you. Why was Tony demonstrated a new Jericho missile in Afghanistan? He's worth like a cajillion dollars.

They couldn't have just sent a video. He's got to go there. Like we're in the middle of a war. He's got, he's in a car with like three people. Like, what is he doing? I don't know anything about how they do that. Do they typically like test these weapons on American soil? I don't know, I don't know why, how they would,

I don't know anything about it. It's ridiculous. I don't know nothing about it. This one drove me crazy. why hasn't Tony have like a full beard after three months in a fucking cave he's got still got the good facial hair but it was no hard it was to have that it was scraggly though was it was a little scraggle

he was scraggleed wouldn't it be like actual like full beard what did that the fucking was he shaving give him like oh here's here's a new Gillette Mike 5 jolette fucking want some good shaving cream do you have sensitive skin Tony or do you want just regular shaving cream it would just be weird

to want to shave, like shaving with the shards. But would it grow in in three months? You tell me. Three months will be pretty much, yes. If he's going to have some fucking facial hair. All right, so he has this electromagnetic heart that is made for him by Jensen in a cave. Comes back to L.A., back to business.

Like, not going to see a couple of heart surgeons? Like, hey, man. So I got this electromagnetic heart. Right. I just wanted you to check this out. Any side effects? Like, is there an infection in there? It's not going to any doctors.

It gets infected. Yeah. No doctors? He doesn't want to go to the doctor. He wants to go. Remember, she says you should go to hospital. He wants to go straight to talk to the people. So, I mean, look, it was working for him.

He's the, once again, part of the character. He's the smartest engineer in the world. The traffic. Maybe sure he is, but he's... The traffic is appalling in this movie. At one point, at night, he goes from Malbu to downtown LA and his fancy Audi. He's just weaving through cars, 100 boughs an hour.

It's like, the only time that, there's two times ever in the 20 years I've been in LA where you've been able to drive with that. Carmageddon, one of the greatest weeks of my entire life. That was dope. I loved it. I went, I think 110 on the I-10. And then. COVID.

Yeah, COVID, the first two months of COVID was unbelievable. So great. Drove everywhere. It was like, whoa, look at L.A. I'm like, flying around. No smog. Yeah, no smog. Yeah, no smog.

Calicoleka would be like, where are you at? I'm like, Rancho Cucamonga. I'm just driving. Like, why? I didn't say that. I'm just getting the car. Just drive, drive around. Like, just drive, drive.

It was so great. Everybody was afraid to drive. Anyway, all right, here's a good one. Pepper Pots. Still single. No, not dating anybody? Well, remember, Bill, she's tiny. Right.

For my guy, Tony. True love, she's just waiting for him. Nobody, like, not on a couple dates. Just nothing. it was it was implied like two dates with rich paul might have had rich paul rich paul be all over that rich pa like if that was if this was real

rich paul would definitely have who's rich paupon any pepper pots paper pots look walking down the red carpet could make a dodger with uh it like clink kirk shot kind of gotten in there already figured this out you said that she's in love she's sitting on it until tony comes around

all right here's another nitpick Tony can get cell phones, cell phone calls in his Ironman suit while I was going 890 miles an hour in the Middle East. Yeah, he's... What kind of cell phone service is that? Yo, Bill, the fucking suit

can fly, dog, okay? It's a suit that can fly. And it's got 5G? The 5G is the least of it. You know how fast he's going? Right, he's going pretty fast. But it's basically like a little plane, right? You can get sales thing on the plane, can't you?

Fine. Why didn't Tony's Malibu House have better security? People are just waltzing in there. He's in this crazy Dr. Evil compound, but Obadiah is just waltzing in. But Obadiah has... Terran Tower is just waltzing in. But these guys have security clearance at his crib. The next house...

Because remember, well, no, because Nick Fury does it too. At the end, Nick Fury bypasses... Nick Fiery goes waltzing in. But Super Spine, but Nick Fury bypasses it too, so maybe it could have been better. This is the leading technology expert we have. and anyone can get into this house. The other people have clearance at his crib. Nick Fury is just a spy.

Tony's in Afghanistan. Let's go party in his house. He won't even know. How long would Tony live without a heart when, like, they pull the heart out? And it's like, oh, Tony's going to cardiac arrest. Just when you immediately die? I don't think he doesn't have a heart. He does.

He has a heart. That thing is stopping the shards of metal from getting to his heart. Yeah. He has a heart. They didn't take his heart out. But so then why is the hole so big? The hole is big because he had to create an arc reactor, and that's as small as he could get it at that point.

That hole looks like you could put a fucking basketball in it. But the heart, the hole. I think they took his heart now. He doesn't. He has the shards of metal if they get to his heart, they'll kill him. So he's keeping them out of him. They fixed this in Iron Man 3. It's no more.

Okay. But up to that point, I guess. Well, I was confused, and I'm a relatively smart person. Right, but yeah, I get it. What I'm saying is like, you know, the arc reactor isn't powering his body, his heart is still plumping. Just had more questions about that

electromagnetic heart holder. Go for it. No, I just, I didn't fully understand it. So Tony learns how to use the suit for weeks. Just in the basement crashing around. Obadiah puts that fucking thing on. He's ready to roll.

Intuitive. Obadiah is fucking, he has the iPhone of suits. He's ready. He's like, fucking. We don't know how long he was practicing. You know, maybe he was in it before. He had just gotten to the heart.

He didn't even get to use the suit because he didn't have the fake heart for it. Yeah. Any other pick of nits? Nah, just the ones that I brought up. Just, you know, continuously making bad decisions, giving the smartest guy in the world, a chance to build a weapon. That's always been the biggest knit that I would pick, like, with this movie. Sequel, prequel, prestige TV, all black cast are untouchable. Well, they've made plenty sequels.

I did think with the all-black cast thing if Pepper Potts was black how that would go If she was black She definitely wouldn't be waiting for a dude To kind of like come love her Her homegirls would be like Nah It's my birthday

You gotta put in your two weeks with Tony It's like it's my birthday It's like I'm I think this might be the day That Tony asked me out Fuck him You've been waiting for a long time My cousin been trying to take you out

Fuck him They would be mean to Tony, her friends. We were at a party. We had this dance. He went to get me a drink and then I never saw him again. Never saw him again. Cut him out. He ain't shit. Sussis don't play that goddamn shit and they're not going for that. Waiting for your boss. Is this

movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trail, Catherine Hines, Steve Bouchemy, Sam Jackson, J.T. Walsh or Philip Baker Haw. We don't have Chris to do Wayne Jenkins here. It does have Sam Jackson. This movie was better with Sam Jackson. With Sam Jackson. Shoeharned in. He makes it better. In the last scene. Just one Oscar. Who gets it? Downy?

Tony, yeah. Without a doubt. All right, I have three unanswerable, probably inensible questions for you. Maybe you'll be able to answer them. Where do Pepper Potts live? I mean where she live? No, let's actually like really try to figure out where she lived.

Pepper Potts. She's got to go to Malibu to the house. There's the downtown LA is where Stark Industries is. So what do you think of like Beverlywood? So she's got to be able to get to Tony's. She needs to be near the I-10 in both ways. This is going to be an L.A. Central conversation for the audience.

I'm sorry. Get to Tony's. Way on the West. I think she needs to be like Beverly Wood, Culver City kind of overland exit area. But she's got to get to downtown. Yeah. This is a nightmare.

She's, yeah, that's, I mean, because she's got to be, need to be near both, right? Maybe Santa Monica? Yeah, but think about having to go downtown from Santa Monica every day. Probably lives like off Montana. Yeah.

Or my friend Daniel lives. But you're probably going to be a little bit further. Since she can do like rich white, white lady stuff on Sundays. Like, Pico, like, Pico-Losienega area, like Fox Studios, Chevy Out Hills, maybe. Cheviot Hills would be a good one.

She's got like a nice little... Boom, Chevy Out Hills, get straight up to 10 to downtown. Because if she's just pining for Tony every night, you kind of need to be near the action more. How much money do you think Pepper Potts makes per year? What's her salary?

She could pretty much call her shot every year, right? Probably. She's making like a million dollars a year? I think she's making half a million at this point, because she's his executive assistant at this point. I think she has an unlimited checking account. It doesn't matter because anything that she has access to whatever she wants. I mean, you know what I think?

I think she's making a half a million dollars a year. Because she went from a long time at this point. She has to his back pocket of Tony, there was some inappropriate interactions with us. So I'd like $5 million a year. Yeah, she'd do whatever she wants. And by way, she becomes the CEO of the company pretty soon. Tony, it took me two hours to get that October 2007 maximum model out of the house. I'd like another $5 million.

Which also makes her a good candidate for a wife because there's nothing you have to break to her at the end. She already knows it all. She wants you. She's there for you. Or that's why they can't ever really get married because they get married and then on the honeymoon, all of a sudden she starts laying into them about some of the things she saw. And he's like, what did I do? Can I get this? A.

Did Jarvis create AI is my next question. Did Jarvis create AI? The AI that we have now that's starting to take over everything. and we'll be doing AI ads on the ringerverse with your voice in about a year. It's going to be great. You're going to be great. They're just going to take your voice.

Let's just put it in. Hey, this is Van Leifethe. Hello? Hello? Maybe. I mean, he's very sophisticated AI. You could talk to him. He becomes a real person.

Jarvis becomes a person. What movie was that? It's Avengers Age of Ultron. Jarvis, the computer Jarvis. Yeah. You ever heard of the character Vision? No. So, in Avengers Age of Ultron,

Ultron. Ultron is an AI that Tony and then built, and then Ultron corrupts Jarvis. Jarvis gets fixed. And when Jarvis gets fixed, they take Jarvis and they put it into a bioorganic body. And Jarvis becomes a member of the Avengers, known as Vision.

It's facts. That's what happened. And Vision then has a relationship as a machine with a human woman. Wow. Scarlet Witch. I had what happened. You don't give a... fuck about anything that was just said.

Let's be honest. I listen to it. It's like you I listen to it. You asked, you asked the question and then the answer was such nonsense to you that I could see. This is where I have issues with the franchise where they just make up anything. It's like

and then he took his head off and he was replaced by a centaur. And it's just like, it's okay. It's the Marvel universe. Anything can happen. Yeah, I think I was scarred by the two Superman movies. with the time of my life when I saw them made me think I didn't love this world

in the right ways. Those movies are really good movies. No, I know they're really good movies, but it really bothered me when he gave up his superpowers. He got them back. I know, but it's like 30 minutes. I know, but I didn't like it.

Not even 30. What's the best double feature choice of this movie? You know, you could do, you could do a 2008 double feature. You could do Iron Man Dark Night. The peak of, that's a good idea. Andy Reds the Watanay Award for what happened the next day.

We kind of know what happened the next day. We know what happened every single day after in his life. What piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie? What about the first electromagnetic heart jumper thing that's in the frame? Although I guess he broke it. Dog, it comes back. At the end of end game? That first heart comes back.

Yeah, when Tony is killed, she, Pepper eventually has that framed. and around it she says proof that Tony Stark has a heart. Like she actually has it, she does a thing. And then at the end of end game, when Tony dies, does Tony die because he had food from goop? He had a bad soy buffalo chicken. It might have been a different one that she framed. But she frames one of those things,

and she gives it to him, says proof that Tony Stark has a heart. And then at the end of end game, after Tony sacrifices himself, they put it in the water. Face it. By the way, kind of a backhanded compliment. What? Proof that he has a heart? Yeah, somebody makes you a thing with the heart that,

the thing on top of your heart that kept you alive, which I thought was a heart until 20 minutes ago. Right. And they frame it, and it says, proof that Tony Stark had a heart. Has a heart. Has a heart. Because you're keeping the trapping a lot of it, yeah.

But that's kind of a dig. It's definitely kind of a dig. It's kind of a fuck you gift. It's like, oh, thanks for this gift. That's, you're basically telling me I don't have a heart. Thank you. Thanks, Pepper. She meant it as, it's their relationship, whatever.

I know. That's why they should have ended up together. That's kind of that your wife gives you after 10 years. They did end up together. Yeah. American had a kid. What did they name the kid? Morgan.

Did he have to hyphenate its name, like Morgan Pot-Stark? No. No, it's Morgan's Morgan's... Did she become Pepper Stark or keep Pepper Potts? I think she became Pepper Pot-Stark, but they never really say explicitly. Craig, would you listen to this as a podcast where Van just tells me things that happen in the Marvel Universe? Yeah, sure. And then Van makes up one thing every pod

And you have to guess which is fake That's the thing Because I could go anywhere I could be telling I could be telling Bruce Bruce I could be telling him All kind of bill

That whole vision thing could have been made up I could have made that up Can I give up Like for example For example Did you know that Matt Damon Is in the Thor movies Did you know that?

That's not true I know what Matt Damon's up to Bullshit It is true He's in the Thor movies Who does he play Matt Damon cameos in the Thor movies as

Oh, he cameos and everything. He cameoed in the road trip sequel. He cameos in the, that was a crazy cameo. Scotty doesn't know. But like, that was, why did he do that? Has anyone ever asked him how that happened? He was friends with, there was, somebody wrote an article about it 10 years ago. He was just friends with the director.

Oh. Yeah. But no, he cameos as an actor in the movie that is really very funny. Is it bad that I didn't know Tony Stark dad until five minutes ago? This is such a blasphemy. I like Iron Man. I just don't want to be in the universe,

but I really liked Iron Man. So how many total appearances from Tony Stark have you seen? Iron Man 1, 2, and 3. Okay. He's in more movies. I don't think I saw the other. I still haven't seen the Avengers movies.

You haven't seen one Avengers movie. You saw Avengers. You saw the OG Avengers. The first one? Yeah. Yeah. But that was like in the, but not any of the recent ones.

How many of they made? I made four. It's been four. Avengers, Ultron. I think I took Ben of the original Avengers. And I think he probably threw up in popcorn or something. What piece of memory would you want? Why did you do this? Well, my kids didn't like Marvel. What do you want for me?

Oh, what piece of memorabilia would I want? I mean, you can't, you could say the suit. You could say the house. Yeah, the house is like, but those are like namesets. The heart's a good one. The heart's a good one. But, oh, you know what I like? I like

Obadiah's little device Oh the earpugs Yeah the Obadiah's little device That fucks with you We should have put that In what's age the best I like the weird devices That fuck with people

And movies like this Yeah it's like I always love stuff like that That just like incapacitates you That like spies have Yeah So Obadiah's little device Where he makes the sound And your veins come all out

I like that That's what I would take Coach Finstock award For Best Life Lesson Don't make weapons But if you do make them keep them to yourself because that's essentially what he did. He made a weapon that was better than any of the weapons that he made before,

except now he uses it. My life's last one would be you got to figure out the pepper pots thing, Tony. This is what's going on here. How long has she worked for your nine years? Dog, they just come in. They literally got married. I know. They literally got together.

That's the lesson we have. The next movie. What are you doing to this poor lady? She's coming in escorting your Vanity Fair reporter out of the house? Take out the trash every now and again. Who won the movie? Downey or Marvel? Because you can make a better case for Marvel, even though Downey wins this movie about as much as anyone can win a movie. But Marvel creates a whole universe out of it. It's probably Marvel, but he is so rich. He is so rich. I think it's a tie. What do you have, Craig, for Downey or Marvel winning the movie?

Man, that's so tough. It's kind of the same thing. He is so rich. Yeah. I mean, for like where he started, it's probably Downey. And you know what the crazy thing is? It's like, we know so much about his career. Yeah. But to an entire generation of kids, he is like only Ironman. Like we know so much about him because we were around with him for so long. But like for a whole group of people. Like if they saw him back to school, they would have like a seizure. Jesus Christ. What the hell?

Weird science. I remember when he was in weird science and the girls were they turned around and they didn't know whether or not they wanted to continue to like talk to the guys. Yeah. And they were doing this behind their back. I've been known since the 80s. But like for most people, he's Iron Man. Craig, your Ironman thoughts.

You were psyched that we did a movie from the last 15 years. By the way, I forgot to mention this is the 15th anniversary of this movie. That's why we're doing it. I'm not a big Marvel guy either. I like them.

I haven't seen all of them. I don't really keep up with like the backstory, but I didn't realize how good Iron Man was. I think I was 14 when it came out. I probably really liked it, but I probably haven't seen it since. And I think I liked it more. But, you know, it's kind of funny

that this movie, like Marvel did to superheroes, kind of what the Stark Industries is doing to weapons. where it's like, just kind of like the overspreading, profiting, oversaturation of something just for pure profit. Like they just beat weapons into the ground, made them like international, sold them everywhere. And then Marvel got did the same thing with superheroes.

So Kevin Fagie is Obadiah. He's Obadiah. He's Obadiah. Yeah. It's a pretty good take. I'd be honest with you, man. It's like you could put like Craig and Rob together on a podcast and it could be just about who can say the most insane

impactful shit in the least amount of words. Craig, like, Rob, like, Rob, we'll all be talking and Rob will just spit out like the theory of relativity or some shit like that. It'll be like, that's it. I mean, that was perfect, but you don't have anything the more. Meanwhile, for me,

completely not economical, my words, takes a whole paragraph. We're monogamous. Yeah. And then that was actually a really good point, but he's been sitting there for the whole fucking time saying nothing. Like, we don't talk podcast, It's called one paragraph podcast. Like just a whole hour, people just get two sentences each to make their point.

That's why the hottest take is for me. I love that pod. You love it. Craig comes in hot. He's a Dion Waders kind of guy. He's the Dion Waders of the Ringer. This podcast was produced by Craig Roebuck. We'll be back on rewatchables next week.

I don't know what movie we're doing, but I know flights like getting close to being in the mix, like pretty soon. So I'll just, I'll hit you up. Ben, thanks for being on the rewatchables. Love it every time.