Random Movie Trivia - Iron Man

Here is the next edition in our weekly Random Movie Trivia post.  Enjoy:

Iron Man

• In the comic book, Tony Stark is captured after an injury to his heart and is forced to make weapons for a bad guy during the Vietnam War.  In the movie, they followed the same origin but just updated it to the war on terror in Afghanistan.
• Rachel McAdams was the director's first choice to play Pepper Potts.
• The script for the movie wasn't finished before they started filming, so a lot of the lines are ad-libbed which gave the movie a more real feel to it.  However, Gwyneth Paltrow had a hard time with this because she said she never knew what Robert Downey Jr was going to say from take to take.
• In 1999, Quentin Tarantino was approached to write and direct this movie.  Then in 2001, Joss Whedon was in negotiations but couldn't reach a deal (and then later when on to direct The Avengers).  Next up in 2004 was The Notebook director, Nick Cassavetes, but that fell through.  Finally, Jon Favreau took over the helm in 2006.
• If you didn't know, director Jon Favreau also plays Tony Stark's bodyguard/chauffeur, Happy, in the movie.
• Nicolas Cage and Tom Cruise were interested in the part of Iron Man and Cruise was even going to produce before Favreau got his way and they hired RDJ to play the part.  And he nailed it.
• Also considered for the role of Tony Stark were Clive Owen, Timothy Olyphant, and Sam Rockwell.  Rockwell went on to play Justin Hammer in the sequel.
• In the scene where Pepper discovers Tony trying to get out of his armor, you can clearly see Captain America's shield sitting on a worktable in the background.
• Jeff Bridges actually shaved his head and grew a beard for the part of Obadiah Stone.  Also, at one point in the movie, Stone tells Tony that "We are iron mongers, we make weapons".  Stone's alter-ego in the comic books is named Iron Monger.
• In an early draft of the script, it is revealed that Tony is the creator of Doctor Octopus' tentacles from Spider-Man 2.
• Tony Stark's computer is called JARVIS (meaning "Just A Rather Very Intelligent System") as a tribute to the comic book character Edwin Jarvis, who was Tony's butler.  The voice of JARVIS was performed by Paul Bettany, who did the whole recording in two hours and at the time, he didn't know what he was making the recording for, he only did it as a favor to Favreau.
• The montage at the beginning of the movie showing Tony's early life contains real photos of a young RDJ and his father RDS.
• Jon Favreau did the voice of Iron Man on an episode of Robot Chicken.  I mention this only because I am doing a post on Robot Chicken in the near future.
• Favreau celebrated getting the directing job by losing 70 pounds.  If you have seen the new movie, he didn't keep it off.

"I still find it funny that they gave the part of a drunk billionaire to a recovering addict.  Things worked out."