Marvel Called J.J. Abrams For Help With First 'Iron Man' [UPDATE]
UPDATE: Apparently, the quote was misinterpreted. Abrams helped on the first Iron Man, not Iron Man 3. That's been changed below.
Is there anything J.J. Abrams isn't doing? Star Trek? Check. Star Wars? Check. Television shows? Check. Video games? Maybe. And now, it seems he even might have had a minor influence on the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In a new interview with Robert Downey Jr. (not ours, that'll be up Thursday) Downey revealed that, in the same way he and director Jon Favreau talked to Shane Black for some help in the first Iron Man film, the group contacted also Abrams for some suggestions on the third act of the original Iron Man. Read the quote below.
Here's what Downey said in a roundtable attended by IGN (thanks to Comic Book Movie for the heads up). The question was in regards to the creative collaboration between himself, and the co-writers Shane Black and Drew Pearce:
By the time all was said and done, a million things had changed, but the essential storyline and arc and what it was about and him kind of on the road and this kid and Pepper's got her own thing. There were a couple times in Iron Man 3 where our lifeline was we'd call Jon Favreau. 'What do we do?' He'd be like, 'Stick with this. Stick with the love story,' or whatever. Then he'd say, 'Wait, didn't we used to do this same thing with Shane?' Because we reached out to Shane a bunch, particularly in the first Iron Man, the scene where Tony comes back from captivity and readdresses his public and the press. Shane said it should all be about what his dad would think, and that's why blah, blah, blah. So there was that. Then I think we reached out to J.J. Abrams at one point when we were really confused in Act III, and he helped us, too. It's just interesting. Usually you think, in the legacy of filmmakers that come and go, there's something so evocative about how strange it is that this particular strain of the Marvel universe was so successful, so what are the reasons for that and how do we keep that vital and just have fun?
Did you know that Abrams consulted on the film? What specifically do you think he helped with?