Looking Historically At When Marvel Villians Are Cast Before Principal Photography- Trying To Figure Out The Mystery Of The Ironman 3 Villain

With 390 days until release date, the information on the trilogy film of the Ironman franchise has been ambigous at this point. It has been described as a Tom Clancy thriller type film with Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Don Cheadle all expected to reprise their roles from the previous Ironman films, that being said virtually no other confirmed information exists on any existing villians that may appear.

Shane Black has confirmed that the Villain will not be The Mandarin, calling it a racist caricature in opting to not use the most well know nemesis of Ironman in the comicbook series. Additionally Black has said that it will not be two men fighting in iron suits, somewhat narrowing the field on who may appear as the opponent of Stark. There can be the Ghost, Spymaster, potentially the Fixer, or maybe exploring the relation or potentially looking at a potential relation between A.I.M and Howard Stark.

Now historcially a few things have been known about Marvel Studios in their pursuit of actors, the finacial issues and pursuit of good actors. Marvel has had some issues with actors over the pay which they issue, previously low balling Mickey Rourke and having issues with Terrence Howard. Marvel has also been known to bring their characters on to the set of Marvel films during production to show what the process is like. Chris Hemsworth apparenlty was shown the set of Ironman 2 before starting work on the original Thor film. Now usually it is known at this point before principal photography on which actors have signed on for a role in their films.

It is most likely that Marvel has already found an actor for Ironman 3, potentially releasing the information after the Avengers to avoid publicity being focused away from their flagship film and the information could be released on the April 11th premier date.

Now Marvel has had five primary villians sign on to the Marvel Studios films in Jeff Bridges, Tim Roth, Mickey Rourke, Tom Hiddleston, and Hugo Weaving.

For the orignial Ironman, Jeff Bridges who portrayed Obidiah Stane had been confirmed as the villian in February of 2007. Filming began a little later in March of that year.

In May of 2007 it was announced that Tim Roth would play "The Abomination" in the 2008 Incredible Hulk film. Filming had later started in July of that year, a full two months before the start of principal photography.

Mickey Rourke had joined the Ironman 2 cast as Whiplash in March of 2009, though he had been rumoured for the part long before that point. Downey has stated in interviews they had a primary agreement done during the Oscars ceremony. Filming began in April for that film.

Tom Hiddleston had been cast as Loki in May of 2009. January of 2010 was the start of filming for that installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Hugo Weaving had been cast as Red Skull in early May of 2010 while filming had started in late June.

Now the villian in the trilogy film will probably be an indivdual who is a talented actor, without that much name value and has not been confirmed to start filming during the summer. The indivdual which would make alot of sense, and would be my indivdual bet to staring as Tony Stark's nemesis is Jeffery Wright, who had been rumoured as appearing on the Avengers set in Cleveland. Clark Gregg even played coy when asked if he saw him on the set, deciding to not to confirm or denying anything. about a potential sighting

If anyone has any theories or speculation, feel free to have your say in the comment section.