Black also said that the studio was not pleased with the direction of Iron Man 2, and that Iron Man 3 would be doing something a little different. Instead of the iron-suited dustups of the first two films, Iron Man 3 will be more along the lines of a Tom Clancy-style thriller, with Iron Man fighting “real world villains.”
Also notable is Black’s statement that Iron Man 3 will not feature other Marvel heroes. Way back when plans for The Avengers were first announced, plenty of people (myself included) wondered how Marvel would sustain such a complicated, interrelated universe containing so many different film franchises — or whether it even planned to. As it turns out, the crossovers we’ve already seen were just setting up the stage for The Avengers. After that film comes out in May, Black says, we can expect to see a return to single-character stories. Though I still wouldn’t be surprised to see winking references to other Marvel heroes in Iron Man 3.