Kate Mara, Clark Gregg Join Iron Man 2; And is Mad Men’s John Slattery Playing Tony’s Dad?

Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on April 23, 2009

The folks over at the Hollywood Reporter have announced this morning that Kate Mara (Shooter) and Clark Gregg have officially signed on to the production of Iron Man 2, which is currently shooting at Marvel’s Manhattan Beach, California studios. They join the already solid cast of Robert Downey Jr., Mickey Rourke, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sam Rockwell, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson and Don Cheadle.

Kate Mara’s role is being kept under wraps for the time being, leading this reporter to believe that it is either (a) super insignificant or (b) a very recognizable comic book character that Jon Favreau is going to surprise us with. That is assuming that the beans don’t get spilled over the course of the next year. Either way, Kate Mara just adds additional hotness to the project.

Clark Gregg will reprise the role as Agent Phil Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D that he played in the first Iron Man.

In other Iron Man 2 news, director Jon Favreau continues to make Twitter updates from the set of the film, despite a noticable slowing due to the folks at Paramount getting a little nervous about him taking shots with his iPhone camera. Either way, he has provided some information that may be of use. First up was yesterday, in which Favs tweeted about Black Widow (Johansson) and Tony (Downey Jr.) doing some shooting in the Stark Mansion:

“Scarlett and Downey in Stark manor.”

Mmm, sexy. As well, Favreau also tweeted about shooting a scene with Mad Men’s John Slattery, who I was not even aware was involved with the project. For those who watch Mad Men, Slattery plays Roger Sterling in the AMC series and is an awesome actor. Rumor has been that Slattery plays Tony Stark’s father Howard, a role previously rumored to be played by Tim Robbins. Of course, we don’t have any concrete answers on that right this moment, but we’re still digging. Either way, I would argue that Slattery is an awesome addition to the Iron Man 2 cast — now if only they took Howard Stark and made him a drunk, it would be Roger Sterling running the Manhattan Project. As a Mad Men fan, that makes me happy even though I know it won’t happen.

What do you think of Kate Mara joining Iron Man 2? Anyone want to take guesses as to who she might play?

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