Hard As Iron: First Photos of Iron Patriot In Iron Man 3

While we comic fans are still swooning over The Avengers movie, let us not forget that Marvel Studios is not resting on the hundreds of millions of dollars that that movie has brought in the way your or I would if presented with hundreds of millions of dollars… actually, given a second thought, I would not be resting on it. I would be furiously masturbating on it. But already, I digress.

No, Marvel Studios already has Iron Man 3, directed by Lethal Weapon writer and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang director Shane Black, in the throes of principal photography. That means they’re shooting it now, in laymans’ terms, and when a geek movie is being shot? That means spy pictures are being leaked to the Internet. Such as the ones after the jump.

(And by the way – “spy pictures” is not industry jargon for “upskirt shots.” Don’t make that mistake and learn about it the hard way, like I did.)

Now, that right there is Iron Patriot. And if you’re an Iron Man fan by way of the movies, you probably don’t know who that is, but we comics fans know that Iron Patriot…

…is Norman Osborn. Y’know, The Green Goblin from the first Spider-Man flick.

Now, since Norman is part of the Spider-Man movie universe, the character is licensed to Sony Pictures, and therefore, this is unlikely to be ol’ Stormin’ Norman. No, supposedly that’s actor James Badge Dale, who reportedly was hired to play villain Coldblood in the flick. So we might be looking at some dual part, start as Iron Patriot, turn into Coldblood kind deal here.

Regardless, the appearance of the armor makes sense. In Iron Man 2, we saw the U.S. Congress battling Tony Stark to get the Iron Man armor, and we saw Rhodey take the Mark II armor to the military. So from a plot standpoint, the idea of some other contractor reverse engineering the armor for the military, and the military then painting it up to grandstand and show they don’t need Stark, makes a lot of sense.

Assuming that’s the case; that’s pure conjecture on my part. But if that’s how it works out, it shows that new director Black is putting together a movie that will fit thematically with the first two, and that’s encouraging. And exciting. Very, very exciting. If you know what I mean. Now where’s my hundred million dollars…

(via What Would Tyler Durden Do)