Just a day after becoming part of The Expendables supercast, Mickey Rourke, along with awesomely hungover-looking Choke star Sam Rockwell, is in talks to play a villain in Iron Man 2.  Sadly, Rourke won’t be playing Clayface, which would’ve been the obvious choice.

Rourke would play a tattooed Russian heavy named Ivan who becomes Whiplash, a man with deadly, technologically enhanced coils.  Rockwell would play Justin Hammer, a multibillionaire businessman and a rival of industrialist Anthony Stark, AKA Iron Man, being played by a returning Robert Downey Jr. [THR]

Hmm, “coils”?  Gonna have to be more specific.  I don’t know if he wants to refrigerate me, electrocute me, or take some sort of super-powered robo-dump.  According to Wiki there are a couple Marvel characters known as Whiplash, but it would seem Rourke will play this one:

Courtesy of Justin Hammer, Blacklash wields a pair of cybernetically-controlled titanium whips that can extend to be swung fast enough to deflect bullets, or become rigid and be used as nunchaku or vaulting-poles. Blacklash also carries a variety of devices in a weapons pouch, including anti-gravity bolas and a necro-lash which releases electrical energy generated by his gauntlets.

My weapons pouch is assless and made of cheetah skin.  I keep my balls in it.

When Marvel abruptly announced they were replacing Terrence Howard with Don Cheadle in the Iron Man sequel, they offered little explanation.  Entertainment Weekly is now reporting that part of the reason was that Howard had been the first to sign on for Iron Man and had been the highest paid cast member (yup, even more than Downey), despite his relatively small role, and refused to renegotiate his contract.  The other reason was that no one liked his performance that much.

According to one source, Favreau and his producers spent a lot of time cutting and reshooting his scenes.  As such, when Favreau and screenwriter Justin Theroux went to map out the sequel they found themselves minimizing Howard’s story line. Once Marvel learned that Favreau was thinking of curtailing the role, the studio went to the actor’s agents with a new and drastically reduced offer — a number that’s similar to what supporting cast members were paid for the first movie. The agents, according to sources, were so taken aback by this new figure — estimated at somewhere between a 50 and 80 percent pay cut — that they questioned it.

It’s unclear whether Howard’s team walked away first, or if Marvel ended the discussion at that point.

FilmDrunk’s inside sources say another sticking point was that Howard hoped to communicate all of his lines through interpretive dance.  Reached for comment, Howard snapped his fingers for 27 straight minutes and made bass noises with his mouth.

So remember Rain of Madness, that whole “making of” mockumentary on Tropic Thunder? I mean, not about, like, the actual Tropic Thunder, but the movie within the movie, which is also called Tropic Thunder? If that didn’t give you an aneurysm, today’s news is that you can watch Rain of Madness free on iTunes. All you have to do is register with iTunes and promise to sign your name on the devil’s cock with baby tears or whatever else is in their terms and conditions that no one reads.

The fake director is a German guy named Jan Jürgen, a cutesy parody of Werner Herzog and his intense existential voice overs in Grizzly Man. Jürgen is played by Thunder co-writer Justin Theroux (who’s also been hired to write Iron Man 2). I haven’t watched the whole thing, but it looks like it could be interesting. Or maybe Tom Cruise just dicks around in a fat suit and everyone raves about his ability to wear makeup. Find out for yourself!  Spin the magic wheel of chance!  *speeds away on unicycle*

The LA Times online today has an article about Jon Favreau’s efforts to lobby the California government to give tax breaks to film and TV productions.  They currently offer no tax rebates, and many productions (Ugly Betty, Life on Mars, Fringe, Kings) have left L.A. for places that do offer tax incentives, such as Louisiana, New York, and Toronto.  Marvel currently has $600 million in productions - Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, and Avengers – that they say they’ll keep in California if the state makes it work their while.  You can read more on that here.

Meanwhile, the news specific to Iron Man 2 is:

“We’re working on it now, which hasn’t been officially announced,” Favreau said. “It will be released in 2010.”

/Film provides a rundown of what we already know about Iron Man 2 but probably forgot after doing all those whippits.

Tropic Thunder screenwriter Justin Theroux has been hired to write the script
Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow and Terrence Howard are expected to reprise their roles.
Marvel is hoping to have the film in theaters on April 30th 2010.

Jon Favreau? Justin Theroux?  I’m not sure I trust this movie, too many silent vowels.  Goddamned lazy French letters, think they can just lounge around while everyone else does the work.

Justin Theroux (pictured at left) has been hired to write the script for Iron Man 2.  The first Iron Man cost $135 million to make and an estimated $50 to $75 million to market.  The sequel will probably cost at least that much, and with so much money invested it makes sense that they’d go with an old pro like Justin Theroux, who has previously written a total of one movie (Tropic Thunder) which isn’t even out yet.  I mean, it looks really funny!  Did you see all those silly websites they created for it?  This guy’s on fucking fire!

I’m sure this will turn out great, I really can’t imagine anything going wrong with this plan.

[Variety]