How Iron Man Built an Empire: The Script Analysis
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has grossed over $34 billion at the box office alone — and that’s just for their feature films. There are another twenty plus shows including live action and animated projects that have brought in profits on multiple streamers and networks, especially Disney+. Spider-Man: Brand New Day just had the biggest opening weekend in box office history. And Avengers: Doomsday comes out later this year.
The MCU is a hit, is what I’m saying.
Marvel, notably Marvel under the leadership of Kevin Feige, didn’t invent the superhero film; they weren’t even the first to make a great one, but they did tap into magic that has allowed them to weave together an extended universe multiverse of characters with films and shows that hit time and time again.
And it all started with Iron Man in 2008.
A team of writers wrote the screenplay. Director Jon Favreau (who also plays “Happy” in the franchise) added brilliant tone and insight. And of course, Robert Downey Jr. gave us the most loveable and complex Tony Stark we could have possibly asked for.
True alchemy.
But more than that, this screenplay contains some of the best uses of foreshadowing, callbacks, and surprising-yet-inevitable twists I’ve ever seen.
Let’s check out the screenplay that started it all.
OPENING IMAGE + INCITING INCIDENT
Proving that you gotta learn the rules so you can know when to break them, Iron Man begins in the middle of the action before flashing back. “A Man in an expensive suit, who looks teleported from Beverly Hills [and] is, of course, genius inventor and billionaire TONY STARK” drinks vodka in a humvee commanded by a bunch of Airmen in rural Afghanistan.
The film wastes no time in giving us the Tony that the world loves and admires. He’s funny. He’s sharp. He can banter. He’s getting along with these young servicemembers, who clearly admire him. They’re all having fun.
And then, right there on page 2 out of nowhere, “a MASSIVE EXPLOSION rocks them.”
The young kids are shot up, another humvee explodes, Tony’s quickly under fire. He tries to flee when an RPG lands near him. Tony has just enough time to register that it’s labeled “STARK MUNITIONS” before it detonates, throwing Tony back before we “FADE TO WHITE”.
In the next scene, Tony snaps awake, tied to a chair and held hostage by enemy insurgents who make demands in a foreign language for a camera.
Then it’s a “CUT TO: CREDITS OVER A FULL SCREEN FILM REEL” where we get backstory on Tony Stark and his father’s empire in a very Walt Disney-like presentation. Howard Stark founded Stark Industries and built B-29s during WWII and contributed “to every major weapons system through the Cold War” and his genius son followed in his father’s footsteps, albeit with a Playboy personality.
The film reel ends to reveal that we are now at an award ceremony in Vegas where OBADIAH STANE, CFO of Stark Industries, accepts an Apogee Award on Tony’s behalf.
His friend, U.S. Air Force Lt. Colonel James “Rhodey” Rhodes, who had been presented the award, shows up to the casino and plops the statue down, glowering. They’ve got a big day tomorrow. He’s sick of Tony blowing off important events and people who care about him.
“The Bathroom door swings open an VIRGINIA ‘PEPPER’ POTTS enters, Tony’s sexy and very capable assistant” — maybe they already knew Gwyneth Paltrow was cast as Pepper when they wrote this line…otherwise I’d argue that this description doesn’t do Pepper justice — barges in with a phone call from the president, but not even that can move Tony to earnestness.
Outside the casino, “CHRISTINE EVERHART, a hot young Reporter” — again…these sexist character descriptions seem to be written by Tony himself… — lobs some hard-hitting questions at Tony, accusing him and Stark Industries of war profiteering before they smash cut to hooking up in his mansion.
By the way, there’s a great moment in the film where Christine sarcastically asks Tony if he ever loses any sleep and he smoothly tells her he’s prepared to lose a few hours with her. We can see in the screenplay that the shooting draft had them exchange a look. This is a great reminder that other people help us punch up our screenplays and make our films and shows stronger. I don’t know who came up with Tony’s line, but it was excellent.
Christine wakes up alone and is smoothly escorted out by Pepper. Tony is already in his workshop. Pepper joins him and very deftly handles his devil-may-care demeanor with efficiency and sharp retorts. They’re cute together, even if Tony doesn’t know it’s Pepper’s birthday.
And then Tony and Rhodey are off to Afghanistan (in Tony’s private jet, which has transformed into a strip club) where Tony demonstrates his new Jericho missile before climbing in a humvee…
Where of course we know he was attacked and captured. Now we’re all caught up.
FUN AND GAMES
Tony awakens in a crude operating room in a cave in Afghanistan. It’s described as “nightmarish” with “stabbing lights” where Tony is chloroformed as YINSEN (60s) operates on him — this screenplay really isn’t about character descriptions.
When he awakens again, he learns with horror that his chest has an ugly wound that is connected to a car battery, a crude solution to keep shrapnel from traveling into his atrial septum.
Insurgent ABU BAKAR enters and demands that Tony build him a Jericho missile.
They cooperate with the insurgents and come up with a secret plan of their own. While making it seem like they’re building the Jericho missile, Tony actually devises first a miniature ARK reactor to suspend the shrapnel in his chest and then a crude Iron Man suit.
They manage to get it ready in time to meet Raza’s schedule and in a scene with incredible pacing, tension, and emotional stakes, Yensin sacrifices himself to help Tony escape in his Iron Man suit.
In a hail of gunfire, flamethrower explosions, and boosters, Tony is able to fly away before plummeting somewhere in the desert, where Rhodey — who hadn’t stopped looking for him — rescues him in a Blackhawk with a quick quip.
After three months in captivity, Tony demands a cheeseburger and a press conference, where he announces that, after seeing his weapons in the hands of people who abuse them, he is freezing the sale of all Stark weaponry worldwide.
Obidiah (and Stark shareholders) isn’t pleased with Tony’s announcement, even when Tony shows him that he successfully created an Arc Reactor (it’s spelled two ways in the screenplay), which could provide incredible clean power, but he promises to support Tony and help him with this new direction.
MIDPOINT
Tony gets to work.
First up, with the help of his advanced artificial intelligence system JARVIS, Tony improves his chest piece. He calls Pepper in to pull out the old piece from his chest cavity and informs her she can throw that one away (she’ll later mount it in Lucite with the inscription: “PROOF THAT TONY STARK HAS A HEART…”).
But Tony is not nostalgic — he’s motivated, finally for the first time in a long time.
In a great montage, Tony works on a new Iron Man suit — but he’s not the only one. We get cuts to the desert where Raza and other insurgents dig Tony’s Mark I suit out of the desert.
Unawares, Tony takes his Mark II out for a test flight, “whooping like a kid on a roller coaster” and “a steel Icarus reaching for the heavens,” before pushing it too far, freezing the system at an altitude that’s too high for this design, and plummeting back to earth.
He de-ices, surges the suit back up before crashing, and makes it home, ready to work on more upgrades.
He leaves the Mark III in Jarvis’ “hands” and heads to his first public event since his press conference, where he has a charming dance with Pepper, learns from Christine that Stark Industries has continued to distribute weapons against Tony’s directive, and discovers that Obadiah has filed an injunction against him in the company.
BAD TO WORSE
In his workshop, Tony sees news reports of a village being terrorized by the Ten Rings, the terrorist group that captured him, and he decides to take his new suit out into the field.
Now, the screenwriters have a few pages in here where they give Tony a perfectly plausible reason to be in the middle east — he travels to his mansion in Dubai under the auspices of throwing a party there and he takes off in his suit as fireworks erupt.
The filmmakers rightfully got rid of all that. Distracted from the stakes. Took up time. Detracted from the story. Didn’t need it. How long did it take Tony to fly to Gulmira from Malibu? Who cares? He gets there and the audience is with him.
Tony as Iron Man makes quick work of the terrorists, heroically freeing the villagers.
But he also captures the attention of the Central Air Operations Center of Edwards Air Force Base and one Lt. Col. Rhodes, who sends two F-22 Raptors to blow the unidentified craft to kingdom come.
Tony tries not to engage with the F-22s, confesses to Rhodey that he is the unidentified craft, and accidentally damages one of the jets, sending it spiraling. The pilot ejects but his chute fails to open. Tony makes it to the pilot just in time and deploys his parachute.
Then, in the outskirts of Gulmira, we learn that Obidiah has been working with the Ten Rings. Raza shows Obidiah Tony’s Mark I suit schematics and then Obidiah paralyzes him with a sonic device before killing Raza and his men.
Obidiah enlists Stark engineers to recreate the miniature ARK reactor but they struggle with it.
Tony sends Pepper to hack into Obidiah’s computer where she learns that he’d not only been the one shipping weapons to shady buyers but he also orchestrated Tony’s abduction. Obidiah walks in on her and they both try to keep the game going — Obidiah isn’t sure if Pepper is on to him until she leaves. As he pursues her, she is rescued by Agent Coulson, a SHIELD agent who had been trying to set up a meeting with her or Tony for the entire film.
She invites him to walk out with her as Obidiah watches.
ALL IS LOST
Obidiah ambushes Tony at home, paralyzing him with his sonic device, stealing his chest-piece, and leaving him to die with the knowledge that Obidiah will have to kill Pepper because Tony got her involved.
Tony, dying, drags himself to the Lucite frame of his cave-built chest-piece and manages to smash it open and get it into his chest. (In the film, this scene is made especially darling because when it seems all hope is lost, one of Tony’s troublesome but endearing robots is the one to hand him the chest-piece.)
But this moment is a brilliant example of a plant-and-payoff. Pepper’s gift seemed sweet, and it was, but for it to become an underdog/hail mary and save Tony’s life is genius.
Tony races to confront Obidiah while Pepper and Coulson do the same. There, they learn that Obidiah created a suit of his own — a massive, monstrous thing that is now powered by Tony’s upgraded arc reactor.
Iron Man battles Dynamo. Tony is out-powered. Out-weaponed. Smaller. Losing.
Okay, now here’s another example of how the film improved upon the screenplay. As written, Tony outsmarts Obidiah — and yes, in the film he does that as well, but first he lures Obidiah to a high enough altitude to cause Dynamo to freeze. Obidiah hadn’t earned the knowledge that comes with the suit — Tony had.
FINALE
Tony is given a nice little alibi as he prepares to make a statement about Stark Industries post-Obidiah Stane. But when he sees an L.A. Times article which asks “WHO IS THE IRON MAN?” he realizes that he kinda likes the name…and so he pulls another Tony Stark and straight up admits it to the room of reporters: “I am Iron Man.”
Now the screenplay ends with a post-credit of Tony and Rhodey designing the War Machine, which will be Rhodey’s suit in the Iron Man sequel.
But the film begins Marvel’s tradition of inserting a post-credit scene that pushes the entire franchise forward by introducing Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury and the Avengers Initiative.
And so it began.
