Supervillains Unite!

It was announced today that there will be not 1 but 2 villains in the next Iron Man film, directed by Jon Favreau. This bit of news is really interesting because the two stars who are rumored to be chosen for the parts are really great. First off for the role of Justin Hammer, a multibillionaire British businessman and a rival of industrialist Tony Stark, is rumored to have been taken by Sam Rockwell. You might recognize him from such films as "Charlies Angels", "The Green Mile", or more recently, "Frost/Nixon". He is one of the best actors out there right now in my opinion. In fact, I'm going to be seeing him shortly in his new film "Moon" premiering at Sundance this year. It looks to be a really interesting film and I will surely blog about that one once I've seen it.

The other villain scheduled to appear in Iron Man 2 is called "The Crimson Dynamo". The character is a heavily tattooed Russian arms dealer who battles the superhero in a nuclear-powered suit of armor that can control electricity. He is rumored to be played by none other than this years comeback kid: MICKEY ROURKE. If you haven't seen him in "The Wrestler" yet, you need to get your butt off of your chair and go see that film. He is outstanding and he is my pick for the best actor academy award for this years oscars. In the comics, The Crimson Dynamo was tricked into defecting to the US and went to work for Stark, forcing the Soviets to send KGB assassin Black Widow after him. What's interesting here is that the Black Widow character has also been rumored to appear in the sequel. There has been no casting news for that character as of yet. Honestly, if Hollywood has learned anything from "Spiderman 3", it's that 3 villains is 1 too many. The Black Widow should either be a cameo or not there AT ALL. Truth be told.