The quick-to-publish Nikki Finke of Deadline Hollywood Daily has two items of significant interest for geeks this afternoon. First, she claims that Marvel Studios and Mickey Rourke have settled their salary squabble (in Rourke's favor), which means the real Best Actor of 2008 is officially on board as IRON MAN 2's "Russian villain" (which may or may not be the Crimson Dynamo). Since IRON MAN's greatest strength was its casting (and Favreau's direction of his actors), this is great news. (Finke also drops an intriguing tidbit re: Rourke almost taking a role as "the" baddie in SPIDER-MAN 4. I'm almost certainly reading too much into her wording, but is it possible that the James Vanderbilt/David Lindsay-Abaire script is limiting itself to one villain?)
The second item is a little less solid, but Finke's got excellent agency sources, so I'll go ahead and link to it as well. As expected, Emily Blunt is 100% out as Black Widow. Taking her place? Scarlett Johansson. According to Finke's story, this is somewhat surprising considering that Johansson was initially rejected after screen-testing for Black Widow months ago. But she's evidently back in the picture now that Fox is forcing Blunt to appear in GULLIVER'S TRAVELS (they had an option tied into her deal for THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA). Johansson's been in some dreadful movies of late, but she's a capable actress when well cast. Black Widow seems like something she could pull off.
Rounding out the day's IRON MAN 2 news, Jon Favreau (w/ DP Matthew Libatique) has something to show you.
