Iron Man 3 is a 2013 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Iron Man, produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It is the sequel to Iron Man (2008) and Iron Man 2 (2010), and the seventh film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film was directed by Shane Black from a screenplay he co-wrote with Drew Pearce, and stars Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark / Iron Man alongside Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Stéphanie Szostak, James Badge Dale, William Sadler, Miguel Ferrer, Jon Favreau, and Ben Kingsley. In the film, Stark grapples with the consequences of the events of The Avengers (2012) during a national terrorism campaign on the United States led by the mysterious Mandarin.
After the release of Iron Man 2 in May 2010, director Jon Favreau chose not to direct the third film. Black was hired to write and direct the sequel in February 2011, working with Pearce to make the script more character-centric, focus on thriller elements, and use concepts from Warren Ellis's "Extremis" comic book story arc. The film's supporting cast, including Kingsley, Pearce, and Hall, were brought on throughout April and May 2012. Filming took place from May 23 to December 17, 2012, primarily at EUE/Screen Gems Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina. Additional filming took place around North Carolina as well as in Florida, Los Angeles, and China; an extended version of the film specifically for Chinese audiences was created. Seventeen companies provided the film's visual effects.
Iron Man 3 premiered at the Grand Rex in Paris on April 14, 2013, and was released in the United States on May 3, as the first film in Phase Two of the MCU. It received positive reviews from critics, with praise for its action sequences, Black's direction, and Downey's performance, though there was criticism for the portrayal of the Mandarin. The film was a box office success, grossing over $1.215 billion worldwide, making it the second-highest-grossing film of 2013 and the sixteenth film to gross over $1 billion. It finished its theatrical run as the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time, while its opening weekend was the sixth-highest of all time. The film received Best Visual Effects nominations at the Academy Awards and the BAFTA Awards.
Plot
At a New Year's Eve party in 1999, Tony Stark meets scientist Maya Hansen, the inventor of Extremis, an experimental regenerative treatment that allows recovery from crippling injuries. Disabled scientist Aldrich Killian offers them a place in his company Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.), but Stark rejects him. Thirteen years later, Stark is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and has frequent panic attacks due to his experiences during the alien invasion of New York. He has built dozens of new Iron Man suits to cope with his insomnia, creating friction with his girlfriend Pepper Potts.
Meanwhile, a string of bombings is claimed by a terrorist known as the Mandarin. Stark's security chief Happy Hogan is badly injured in one such attack and is put into a coma, prompting Stark to issue a televised threat to the Mandarin, revealing his home address in the process. The Mandarin sends gunship helicopters to destroy Stark's home. Hansen, who came to warn Stark, survives the attack with Potts. Stark escapes in an experimental new Iron Man suit, which his artificial intelligence J.A.R.V.I.S. pilots to rural Tennessee, following a flight plan from Stark's investigation into the Mandarin. Stark's new armor is not fully functional and lacks sufficient power to return to Malibu, leading the world to believe that he died.
With the help of Harley Keener, a local boy, Stark investigates the remains of a local explosion bearing the hallmarks of a Mandarin attack. However, it occurred years before any known attack by a terrorist. He discovers the "bombings" were triggered by soldiers subjected to Extremis whose bodies explosively rejected the treatment, and were falsely attributed by A.I.M. as a terrorist plot to cover up Extremis' flaws. Stark witnesses Extremis firsthand when Mandarin agents Savin and Brandt attack him. Stark kills Brandt and incapacitates Savin. Meanwhile, Killian resurfaces and kidnaps Potts with assistance from Hansen. American intelligence agencies continue to search for the Mandarin, with James Rhodes—the former War Machine, now re-branded as the Iron Patriot—lured into a trap to steal his armor.
Tracing the Mandarin to Miami, Stark infiltrates his headquarters using improvised weapons. Inside, he discovers the Mandarin is English actor Trevor Slattery, who is oblivious to the actions carried out in his image. Killian, the mastermind behind Slattery's cover, captures Stark. Killian, who appropriated Hansen's Extremis research as a cure for his own disability and expanded the program to include injured war veterans, reveals he has subjected Potts to Extremis in the hope Stark will help fix Extremis' flaws while trying to save her. When Hansen betrays Killian by threatening to jeopardize his operations, Killian kills her.
Stark escapes and reunites with Rhodes, discovering that Killian intends to attack President Ellis aboard Air Force One, using the Iron Patriot armor, controlled by Savin. Stark kills Savin, saving the passengers and crew, but cannot stop Killian from abducting Ellis. At an impounded damaged oil tanker, Killian intends to kill Ellis on live television, so that the Vice President would then become a puppet leader following Killian's orders, in exchange for Extremis curing his young daughter's disability. Stark and Rhodes infiltrate the platform, aided by the Iron Man suits, remotely controlled by J.A.R.V.I.S.. Rhodes secures the President and takes him to safety, while Stark discovers Potts has survived the Extremis procedure. Before he can save her, a rig collapses around them, and she falls to the platform to her apparent death. Stark fights Killian but finds himself cornered. Potts, whose Extremis powers allowed her to survive the fall, kills Killian to save Stark.
As a gesture of his devotion to Potts, Stark orders J.A.R.V.I.S. to destroy all the Iron Man suits. The Vice President and Slattery are arrested, and Happy awakens from his coma. With Stark's help, Potts's Extremis effects are stabilized. Stark promises to scale back his life as Iron Man, undergoing surgery to remove the shrapnel near his heart and throwing his obsolete chest arc reactor into the sea. He muses that, even without the technology, he will always be Iron Man.
Cast
Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark / Iron Man: An Avenger and a self-described genius, billionaire, playboy, and philanthropist with mechanical suits of armor of his own invention. Stark now struggles to come to terms with his near-death experience in The Avengers (2012), suffering from anxiety attacks. On making a third Iron Man film, Downey said, "My sense of it is that we need to leave it all on the field—whatever that means in the end. You can pick several different points of departure for that". On following up The Avengers, Downey said they "tried to be practical, in a post-Avengers world. What are his challenges now? What are some limitations that might be placed on him? And what sort of threat would have him, as usual, ignore those limitations?" Screenwriter Drew Pearce compared Tony to an American James Bond for both being "heroes with a sense of danger to them, and unpredictab[le]" even if Stark was a "free agent" instead of an authority figure like Bond. He also likened Tony to the protagonists of 1970s films such as The French Connection (1971), where "the idiosyncrasies of the heroes is what made them exciting". Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts: Stark's girlfriend, longtime associate, and the current CEO of Stark Industries. Paltrow says of her character's relationship to Tony, "[She still] adores Tony, but she absolutely gets fed up with him. He gets caught in a feedback loop." Kevin Feige commented on Pepper's role in the film: "The love triangle in this movie is really between Tony, Pepper and the suits. Tony, Pepper and his obsession with those suits, and the obsession with technology". Feige also stated the film uses the character to play with the damsel in distress trope, and posits the question, "Is Pepper in danger or is Pepper the savior?" Don Cheadle as James "Rhodey" Rhodes / Iron Patriot: Stark's best friend and the liaison between Stark Industries and the U.S. Air Force in the department of acquisitions. Rhodes operates the redesigned/upgraded War Machine armor, taking on an American flag-inspired color scheme similar to the Iron Patriot armor from the comics. Feige said of Rhodes and the armor, "The notion in the movie is that a red, white and blue suit is a bold statement, and it's meant to be. With Rhodey, he's very much the foil to Tony's eccentricities, and in this one you get to see this and be reminded of the trust and friendship between them in that great Shane Black buddy-cop fashion". In the film, the president asks Rhodey to take up the moniker "Iron Patriot", and don the red, white, and blue suit, in order to be the government's "American hero" in response to the events in The Avengers. Guy Pearce as Aldrich Killian: The creator of the Extremis virus and the founder and owner of the science and development organization Advanced Idea Mechanics who adopts the mantle of the Mandarin as his own. Killian develops Extremis to cure his own debilitating disability; in addition to his regenerative healing qualities, he has superhuman strength and the ability to generate extreme heat. Prolonged exposure to Extremis also grants him the ability to breathe fire. Pearce felt he was "a little more experimental" in the roles he was taking in his career, and was not keen on appearing in a superhero film, but felt his role in this film was "cameo stuff" which was a more enjoyable experience because he was "working in concentrated spurts". Pearce described Killian as a man with physical disabilities who has "never been able to accept those limitations" and works to overcome them, continuing, "His tenacity and blind determination in fighting for a better life are seen by some as irritating, as he often comes across as obnoxious." Black felt that Pearce ultimately is the Mandarin in the film, and that Marvel worked with him "to come up with these crazy things, these far out ideas" that divert from established expectations from the comics. Rebecca Hall as Maya Hansen: A geneticist whose work helped Killian create Extremis. Hall said Hansen would be a "strong female character," and described her decision to take the role, saying, "I decided to do Iron Man 3 because I've never done the 'hurry up and wait' movie before. Even the studio movies I've done have been small studio movies, or indie films that we made on a wing and a prayer. I love those, but Iron Man is refreshing in a way because it's something out of my realm of experiences". Hall confirmed her character's role was greatly reduced in the final film, saying, "I signed on to do something that was a substantial role. She wasn't entirely the villain—there have been several phases of this—but I signed on to do something very different to what I ended up doing". Stéphanie Szostak as Ellen Brandt: A war veteran who becomes an assassin after her exposure to Extremis. Describing Brandt, Szostak says, "... [Extremis] was a second chance at life. We talked about what you feel like and I think it almost makes you a fuller version of who you are, all your weakness and your qualities—just everything gets enhanced. I saw it as very freeing, almost you become your true-self and your fantasy-self all at once". The writers originally envisioned Brandt as Killian's main henchman, who would return throughout the film to fight Tony, but eventually, that role was reassigned to Eric Savin.