While we all loved or hated the twist on Ben Kingsley‘s Mandarin not being the actual villain in ‘Iron Man 3‘ it seems that Rebecca Hall‘s Dr. Maya Hansen was initially meant to have a more prominent role in the film. Guy Pearce’s Alrich Killian ended up being a great bad guy but the good doctor was originally going to survive until the end. So what happened to her character that ended up shortening things up? According to director Shane Black, she was actually originally meant to be the major villain in the film and this was changed due to toy manufacturers worried about reduced sales and Hall has confirmed this.
While promoting her upcoming film ‘Christine’ at the Toronto International Film Festival it has been brought up and she said that everything Black had reported was “100% true”:
“I signed on to do something that was a substantial role. She wasn’t entirely the villain – there have been several phases of this – but I signed on to do something very different to what I ended up doing. Halfway through shooting they were basically like, ‘What would you think if you just got shot out of nowhere?’ I was meant to be in the movie until the end… I grappled with them for a while and then I said, ‘Well, you have to give me a decent death scene and you have to give me one more scene with Iron Man,’ which Robert Downey Jr. supported me on.”
As complaints have been commonplace directed towards toy manufacturers who haven’t created proper toys for Gamora and the like, it is surprising that they were able to sway Disney’s Marvel Studios on changing who the villain ended up being. Hall did throw in:
“Look, [Marvel] is paying for their mistakes right now, and I applaud them for casting Brie Larson in Captain Marvel. Hallelujah. It’s about time women started being the heroes of things. They can also be the anti-heroes of the things and that’s what I feel I’m getting to do with Christine.”
Honestly, I can’t imagine that it doesn’t sting having been offered a juicy main villain role in a Marvel movie only to end up being the only partially willing sidekick. With how her part did play out in the film, I would have loved to see her gone full-on super villain had they stuck to the original script.
Do you think that Marvel Studios dropped the ball by not letting Rebecca Hall’s Dr. Maya Hansen be Iron Man’s first major female villain? Share your thoughts below True Believers!
Source: Screen Rant
Stuart Conover is an author, blogger, and all around geek. When not busy being a father and husband he tries to spend as much time as possible immersed in comic books, science fiction, and horror! Would you like to know more? Follow him on Twitter!
