2008's "Iron Man" was a big success at both the box office and word of mouth after its release.
Since the Marvel Universe is running smoothly, the sequel is naturally a matter of certainty, so "Iron Man 2" was quickly established and advanced.
However, behind the production of this film, it is not very peaceful, and there is a contradiction between the actor and the Marvel official.
The focus is on the actor of the first war machine, Terrence Howard.
As we all know, in addition to Tony Stark in the "Iron Man" series, there is also a core character, that is, his best friend Colonel Roddy, which can be regarded as the second male.
When the first Iron Man was filmed, it was also one of the first characters to be determined.
At that time, Terrence had just won the film emperor nomination not long ago, the career was developing rapidly, and Marvel also liked him, so he was invited to play the role of War Machine.
At that time, Terrence's salary was about $3.5 million to $4.5 million.
Soon after, director Jon Feiru took a fancy to Robert Downey Jr. and intended to invite him to play the role of Tony Stark.
But this decision was met with strong opposition from Marvel executives and publisher Paramount.
They don't think it's good for the film to use a fringe actor, and it may have the opposite effect.
However, at that time, Jon tried to protect Downey's role as an actor.
According to Tyrence, he was on Downey's side at the time, claiming that Stark was the character of Downey, and Downey was the most suitable actor.
As a result, under the protection of the director and the second man, plus the Kevin Feige trio, Downey was able to become the main actor, although he was only paid about $500,000 at the time.
By the time of Iron Man 2, things had changed a lot.
First of all, Downey's popularity has soared due to his excellent performance in the first part, and it has become the absolute core of the movie, and there is no one.
In other words, when Downey was in the second part, it was certainly impossible to be the 500,000 film remuneration for the first part.
There are children's shoes that may say, isn't this normal?
The first one was a great success, the second actor's salary rose, and not to mention how much "Iron Man" earned, Marvel also found Disney, the gold lord, it is reasonable to say that everyone will increase the salary, and everyone is happy to continue filming, which is not a big deal, right?
But let us not forget, what is the purpose of capital merchants?
It is to maximize all benefits and exchange the least amount of money for the greatest benefits.
It's like a lot of companies are advocating overtime, 007 or something, that's the way it is.
Specific to "Iron Man 2", the producers found Terrence and claimed to only give him one-eighth of the original promised salary.
Terrence was very upset about this, but Marvel's response was also quite tough:
"The key to the success of this movie is not you, love to act or not, there are no more of you, there is no more of you, is not without you, the second "Iron Man" movie will still succeed to understand?" 」
In Marvel's view, the only actors who can afford the "Iron Man" series are Robert Downey Jr., and the rest is irrelevant.
Although colonel Roddy played by Terrence was actually a lot of praise on the Internet at that time, it was not an indispensable role for Marvel.
Moreover, Terrence's temper is actually not very good, according to some reports on the internet, when "Iron Man" was filmed, he was very dissatisfied with the director and some staff members because of his temper.
Therefore, Marvel intends that if he continues to star, the script in the second part will weaken the role of War Machine, and his salary will be reduced.
As for the previous remuneration promise? Will capital take this to heart?
For Terrence, of course, this is unacceptable.
Marvel once made it clear to him that if the first film is successful, it will give him an additional 5 million in the sequel, and now only one-eighth of the 1 million is given to him? Not enough for a third of the first part?
After that, everyone knows, the two can not be discussed, so Terrence finally withdrew from the Marvel Universe.
But interestingly, Marvel seems to have a candidate ready, and while they were still negotiating, they were already in contact with Don Chandel, and as soon as Terrence quit, he was immediately asked to play The War Machine.
After quitting the Marvel Universe, Terrence has publicly expressed his anger at the incident in several interviews.
He claims that Marvel's approach is immoral, but he also says he resents a person more than Marvel.
who? It's Robert Downey Jr.
Terrence claimed that in the first film, in order to make Downey play smoothly, he voluntarily reduced his salary by 1 million to vouch for him.
However, when he got into a conflict with Marvel, he wanted Downey to help him speak, because he didn't want to quit the Marvel Universe either.
He said he sent more than a dozen text messages to Downey a day and made dozens of phone calls, but the other party of the text messages directly ignored them, and the phone was directly unanswered.
Later, he learned that the producers wanted to move his film remuneration to Downey.
In other words, Downey's silence, in Terrence's eyes, was tantamount to taking his own money.
Marvel did not show weakness, saying that Terrence's remarks were nonsense, and Downey did not respond.
Of course, the relationship between Terrence and Downey later eased up, but that was an afterthought, and at least it was certain that when Terrence first withdrew from the Marvel Universe, he had a grudge against Downey.
After the release of "Iron Man 2", it won $620 million at the box office worldwide, which was higher than the first one, but the word of mouth was much worse.
In fact, although Marvel initially intended to weaken the War Machine scene, that was also the premise that Terrence did not quit, and when Colonel Rod was replaced by Don Chandel, it was obvious that there were many War Machine scenes in the entire script.
Therefore, if you really change Terrence to play, it is estimated that there will be no change.
And this change of storm, in fact, in the end it is 4 words:
Distribution of benefits.
For Marvel, in fact, there is no such thing as "making money and raising wages together".
Quite simply, Marvel is also capital, and the world of capital has always had only how to maximize profits.
The beneficiaries who maximize the benefits must be themselves.
Therefore, from Marvel's business point of view, it is most appropriate to transfer the original promise to Terrence to Downey.
But from Terrence's point of view, this is certainly unacceptable.
However, after the success of the first film, Terrence at that time actually had no capital to negotiate with Marvel.
Marvel really wants to change him, what can he do?
So it's still the old saying, in these struggles in Hollywood, the last laugh is always capital.