# Iron Man (2008 film)

Iron Man is a 2008 superhero film in which, after being held captive in an Afghan cave, billionaire engineer Tony Stark creates a unique weaponized suit of armor to fight evil. It is based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Iron Man, and is the first installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
    Directed by Jon Favreau. From a screenplay by Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway.

## Tony Stark / Iron Man

* "Is it better to be feared or respected?" I say, is it too much to ask for both? With that in mind I humbly present you the crown jewel of Stark Industries' Freedom Line. It's the first missile system to incorporate our proprietary Repulsor Technology. They say that the best weapon is one that you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once. That's how Dad did it, that's how America does it…and it's worked out pretty well so far. Find an excuse to let one of these off the chain, and I personally guarantee you the bad guys won't even want to come out of their caves. For your consideration…the Jericho.

## Obadiah Stane

* Do you really think that just because you have an idea, it belongs to you? Your father, he helped give us the atomic bomb. Now, what kind of world would it be today if he was as selfish as you?

## Dialogue

    Christine Everheart: Mr. Stark, you've been called the Da Vinci of our time. What do you say to that?
    Tony: Absolutely ridiculous, I don't paint.
    Everheart: What do you say to your other nickname, "The Merchant of Death"?
    Tony: That's not bad.
    Pepper Potts: I have your clothes here; they've been dry-cleaned and pressed. And there's a car waiting for you outside that will take you anywhere you'd like to go.
    Everheart: You must be the famous Pepper Potts.
    Pepper: [smiling] Indeed I am.
    Everheart: After all these years, Tony still has you picking up the dry cleaning.
    Pepper: I do anything and everything Mr. Stark requires. Including, occasionally, taking out the trash. [still smiling] Will that be all?
    Tony: We gotta go. Come on, move with me. We have a plan, and we're going to stick to it.
    Yinsen: This was always the plan, Stark.
    Tony: Come on, you're going to go see your family. Get up.
    Yinsen: My family is dead, Stark. And I'm going to see them now. [sees Tony is upset] It's okay. I want this. I want this.
    Tony: Thank you for saving me.
    Yinsen: Don't waste it. Don't waste your life, Stark. [dies]
    Tony: I never got to say goodbye to my father. There's questions I would've asked him. I would've asked him how he felt about what his company did, if he was conflicted, if he ever had doubts. Or maybe he was every inch of man we remember from the newsreels. I saw young Americans killed by the very weapons I created to defend them and protect them. And I saw that I had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero accountability.
    Press Reporter #1: Mr. Stark, what happened over there?
    Tony: I had my eyes opened. I came to realize that I had more to offer this world than just making things that blow up. And that is why, effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark Industries. [reporters become agitated]
    Tony: A little ostentatious, don't you think?
    J.A.R.V.I.S.: What was I thinking? You're usually so discreet.
    Tony: Tell you what. Throw a little hot-rod red in there.
    J.A.R.V.I.S.: Oh yes. That should help you keep a low profile. [seconds later] The render is complete.
    Tony: Hey, I like it. Fabricate it, paint it.
    J.A.R.V.I.S.: Beginning automated assembly. Estimated completion time is five hours.
    Tony: Don't wait up for me, honey.
    Tony Stark: I was out of town for a couple months, in case you didn't hear.
    Christine Everhart: Is this what you call accountability? It's a town called Gulmira. Heard of it?
    Tony Stark: When were these taken?
    Christine Everhart: Yesterday.
    Tony Stark: I didn't approve any shipment.
    Christine Everhart: Well, your company did.
    Tony Stark: Well, I'm not my company.
    Obadiah Stane: Please, do you mind?
    Tony Stark: Have you seen these pictures? What's going on in Gulmira?
    Obadiah Stane: Tony, Tony. You can't afford to be this naive.
    Tony Stark: You know what? I was naive before, when they said, "Here's the line. We don't cross it. This is how we do business." If we're double-dealing under the table... Are we?
    Engineer: Mr. Stane. Sir, we've explored what you've asked of us and it seems as though there's a little hiccup. Actually, um...
    Stane: A hiccup?
    Engineer: Yes, see to power the suit. sir, the technology doesn't actually exist. So it...
    Stane: Wait, wait, the technology? [gestures towards the Arc Reactor] William, William... here is the technology. I've asked you to simply make it smaller.
    Engineer: Yes, sir, and that's what we're trying to do, but... honestly, it's impossible.
    Stane: [yelling] TONY STARK WAS ABLE TO BUILD THIS IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!
    Engineer: Well, I'm sorry. I'm not Tony Stark.
    Iron Monger: You had a great idea, Tony, but my suit is more advanced in every way!
    Iron Man: How'd you solve the icing problem?
    Iron Monger: "Icing problem"? [ice forms over suit, "eyes" flicker and go out, and its thrusters shut off]
    Iron Man: Might wanna look into it. [thumps Stane on the helmet and sends him tumbling back to Earth]
    Tony: J.A.R.V.I.S.
    J.A.R.V.I.S.: Welcome home, sir.
    Man: "I am Iron Man." You think you're the only superhero in the world? Mr. Stark, you've become part of a bigger universe. You just don't know it yet.
    Tony: Who the hell are you?
    Man: Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D.
    Tony: Ah.
    Fury: I'm here to talk to you about the Avenger Initiative.

## About Iron Man (2008 film)

* They had no script, man. They had an outline. We would show up for big scenes every day and we wouldn't know what we were going to say. We would have to go into our trailer and work on this scene and call up writers on the phone, 'You got any ideas?' Meanwhile the crew is tapping their foot on the stage waiting for us to come on. You've got the suits from Marvel in the trailer with us saying, 'No, you wouldn't say that. You would think with a $200 million movie you'd have the shit together, but it was just the opposite. And the reason for that is because they get ahead of themselves. They have a release date before the script, ‘Oh, we'll have the script before that time,' and they don't have their shit together.
   * Jeff Bridges, "Jeff Bridges Admits Iron Man Movie Had No Script", Meredith Woerner, IO9, (12/02/09).
* "What I usually hate about these [superhero] movies [is] when suddenly the guy that you were digging turns into Dudley Do-Right, and then you're supposed to buy into all his 'Let's go do some good!' That Eliot Ness-in-a-cape-type thing. What was really important to me was to not have him change so much that he's unrecognizable. When someone used to be a schmuck and they're not anymore, hopefully they still have a sense of humor.
** Robert Downey Jr. as quoted in Carroll, Larry (March 18, 2008). "Iron Man Star Robert Downey Jr. Talks About Incredible Hulk Cameo, Controversial Tropic Thunder Pics". MTV. Archived from the original on March 19, 2008. Retrieved March 18, 2008.
* Me and my effects supervisor John Nelson worked with the Stan Winston studios to build practical suits and we were working with the team from ILM who, a lot of them, had worked on Transformers. We got to benefit from a lot of the technology they broke through for that production which really makes Iron Man photo-real. As you might know, I’m not a fan of CGI per-se so I was very demanding that we make the effects as photo-real as possible. Well that’s what Jurassic Park did and that’s why I think it holds up so well today. There are relatively few [CGI] shots in Jurassic Park; a lot of that stuff is robotics, animatronics. You have to mix practical with computer generated and so there was stuff we did that was seen as wasteful sometimes when we were budgeting. When Iron Man’s flying we’d send real planes up to do the choreography so that we’d get the camerawork to really look like a cameraman was following from another plane. It gives it that Top Gun look. One of the first things I did was I sat down all the people working on the visual effects and we screened scenes from Top Gun and scenes from Stealth and I said, “Why does Top Gun look so much more real?” Stealth had all of this money, technology and state-of-the-art effects and it looks like you’re watching a videogame. We figured out that a lot of it had to do with how restrained the camera was. Don’t give the camera too much freedom or choreography. Get the shading right, the lighting right and there are things you can do to make the CGI look more real. People end up going crazy and give themselves a little too much freedom in how they use CGI and if you overuse it, it draws attention to itself.
   * John Favreau, "RT Interivew: John Favreau On Iron Man, Effective Cgi And The New Marvel Movies", Joe Utichi Rotten Tomatoes, (28 April 2008).

## Cast

* Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark / Iron Man
* Terrence Howard as Lt. Col James "Rhodey" Rhodes
* Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane
* Shaun Toub as Ho Yinsen
* Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts
* Faran Tahir as Raza
* Paul Bettany as J.A.R.V.I.S.
* Leslie Bibb as Christine Everhart

## External links

* Official site
* Iron Man quotes at the Internet Movie Database
Marvel Cinematic Universe :
| Films | Iron Man (2008) · The Incredible Hulk (2008) · Iron Man 2 (2010) |
| TV Series/Specials | WandaVision (2021) · The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021) · Loki (2021-2023) · What If...? (2021-2024) · Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (2025-present) |