The huge box office and critical success of the original Iron Man came as a bit of a surprise to everyone. Iron Man, while having a long publishing history, has never been one of those mainstream, iconic super heroes like a Batman or a Spider-Man. Despite that, director Jon Favreau and star Robert Downey Jr. absolutely nailed the character so perfectly that everyone fell in love with the film. And now that ol’ shellhead has had a feature film that was such a mainstream success, perhaps the argument could start to be made that he is a character on par with the Batmans and Spider-Mans of the world. So, a lot of people were understandably upset when it was announced that Favreau, a guy who did so much for the character, wouldn’t be returning to the director’s chair of Iron Man 3. The guy they got to replace him, however, has a pretty great pedigree, and it turns out that he’s already helped out on this series before. In a Q&A at the Hero Complex Film Festival, Downey tells a story about how he and Favreau went to the new director, Shane Black, when they had reached a stumbling point on one of the past Iron Man films: “I said, ‘We should talk to Shane.’ And I was like, ‘Shane, we can’t really pay.’ And he was like, ‘Bring me some salmon and some blueberries.’ And we went to Yoda’s house in Miracle Mile and it wound up coming in [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Special is a solid film because it sticks to the basics – a great script, and a stellar performance by a talented lead actor.