Recap: Iron Man Screening with Live Commentary from Favreau and Downey Jr.
September 12th, 2008 by Alec McNayrPosted in Film, Media, Producing | No Comments »I’m ashamed of myself for taking this long to write about it, but last Saturday I went a screening of Iron Man at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica.
It was billed to feature live commentary from director Jon Favreau (over the movie, a la DVD commentary), but before he started, he told us about his fight to get Robert Downey Jr. into the lead role… and low and behold, Downey himself had snuck in the back. So they did the commentary together.
And it was amazing.
Some thoughts from the experience:
- There won’t be a director’s commentary on the DVD. Favreau hinted at taping the event and posting it online. I hope he does.
- Robert Downey Jr. looks different in person than he does on film. He’s softer-looking, and smaller than you’d expect. I attribute this to great acting talent.
- It seems like 90% of the dialog in the movie was either improvised or written the night before (or hours before) shooting. Downey in particular seemed to relish messing with people (his sit-down press conference moment was improvised). Even the comedic moments with Stark’s robots came from improvisations on set, that were able to be heightened and called back as they shot scenes in order.
- Downey showed up on set even on days he wasn’t shooting. He was genuinely passionate about the project and the work.
- Gwyneth Paltrow took the role and said that, now that she has a family, she works best before 9 PM. Her first shot, at Disney Hall, wasn’t until 3 AM. Oops, says Favreau.
- Most scenes were shot with two cameras, allowing the actors to overlap each other’s lines, and to give Favreau many options for editing. (that’s how we’ve shot all our projects, too, btw)
- The heavily-CGI-ed suit-up scene was only added when Marvel saw how well Transformers did, and they ponied up an additional $2 million.
- The Iron Man sequel is not 100% official, but is being penned by Tropic Thunder scribe Justin Theroux. (Though, Downey said that he’d throw that script aside as much as he did on this one.)
All in all, Iron Man is a great movie that really does teeter between comic book action and indie-film reality. The tone and creativity of it works great, and being a part of the screening only beholdens me to Favreau and Downey’s work even more.
