Via Jon Favreau’s twitter feed and “Road & Track”, we’ve got a picture of Tony Stark’s Grand prix racer. This will form part of the Monaco action scene, which presumably also features Whiplash (Mickey Rourke). We’ve previously seen set pictures from Downey Studios, California, which show a replica Monaco racetrack being built. Astute fans have also noticed the shape of the Moncao GP track on Tony Stark’s computer screen in the first officially released Iron Man 2 image.

RT @ironmanarmory: @Jon_Favreau I see Road & Track has pics up of Stark’s GP racer. http://bit.ly/Sa3Qh

There’s really nothing much to this new Iron Man poster, but here goes:

Attack of the show co-host Olivia Munn made it known, via Twitter, that she would have a role in Iron Man 2 - though couldn’t legally discuss it yet. On Twitter she suggested her role was bigger than a one minute appearance, watch “Big Stan” for details.

@awalker2334 thx! im excited. @jonfavreau is awesome! http://www.variety.com/arti…

@tr1gun it is definitely a bigger role than “big stan”..

Before joking,

@JammedHands haha.. yes, spoiler. I am playing the role of War Machine in Iron Man 2. Terrance Howard, Don Cheadle and now Olivia Munn! ha!

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Chief Marvel editor, Joe Quesada, has answered some more question on the regular Cup ‘O Joe column, this time pertaining to Thor and Iron Man 2.

On Thor

Quesada talks with great passion about Branagh and Kevin Feige’s creative partnership, and the delight it was to watch them explore the Thor ideas and mythology. His approach to the Thor franchise is Shakespearean, explaining emotions between characters in each scene, their motivation and how it relates to the movie’s plot.

Character development looks like it shall play a significant part in the Thor adaptation, Quesada describes this quality as “quintessential” in creating a Marvel movie. There are capes and big hammers, but, “It’s about what makes characters tick”. And Quesada adds, “there’s reasons and motivations for him to hit people with his hammer… hard!”

When it comes to marketing Thor, it’s all about raising awareness before the movie’s release. Similar to the Iron Man approach, Thor’s character shall be introduced to kids through animation, in particular in “Super Hero Squad” and “Avengers Animated”.

On Iron Man 2

Quesada describes Favreau as intense and cerebral, and is again happy to relay the director’s understanding and passion for the Tony Stark character, “Why put on the suit?”. Favreau’s approach is about having the world’s most powerful weapon and making the story bigger, all the while keeping it “streamlined” and ultimately maintaining that much needed relevance at the personal level.

Here’s Mickey Rourke in full Whiplash costume. Click the image for a high res version.

Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) sports a power pack on his chest that looks similar to the one that Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) uses.

“The technologies are definitely related,” says director Jon Favreau. “That’s part of the core theme of the film.”

The villain’s alter ego, Ivan Vanko, is a Russian who “has constructed his own version of a suit,” Favreau says. Among the creative innovations: a pair of whips, powered by the suit’s glowing chest piece, that are expected to keep Iron Man cracking.

This first image of the character shows Whiplash making an appearance at the Monaco Historic Grand Prix. Favreau as usual is tight-lipped about plot points and declines to discuss whether the big-screen Whiplash is, as in the Marvel Comics, a weapons designer who works for Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), a competitor of Tony Stark/Iron Man.

“We like to play into and against the expectations that people might have, so we mixed it up a bit,” Favreau says.

Rourke’s performances in Sin City and The Wrestler helped convince the director that the actor was the best candidate to face Downey in his sequel to last spring’s blockbuster that grossed $318.4 million.

“It was very important that the villain be as compelling as can be. … Once I thought of Mickey in that role, it made me understand how to shape the story.”

(Thanks Leroy!)

Speaking with The Guardian, Rourke mentions how he learned a little Russian for his role:

And Iron Man 2, in which he plays Tony Stark’s tattooed Russian nemesis, Ivan, is possibly the biggest movie yet in Rourke’s new career. For Rourke this means going to Russia, drinking vodka and visiting jails to study prison tattoos and find his character’s tics. “I decided to do half my role in Russian,” he beams, “and that’s hard because the Russian language doesn’t roll off the English-speaking tongue very easily. I spent three hours a day with a teacher, and after two weeks I know four sentences! Let me see, it’s sort of like… ‘Yezzamee menya… Yezzamee manya obott… Er, nemaboootty menya…’”

This goes on for quite some time. “It means,” he says, finally, “If someone kills me, don’t wake me up, because I’d rather be dead than live in your world.”

But the land of blockbuster movies is not somewhere Rourke plans to stay long. “I’m not gonna rush out and see the next Batman, I’m not big on formula movies. I don’t like all that Spider-Man shit.”

Continuing on from the recent Kevin Feige revelations, First Showing have provided a second commentary of the event, which offers up some more details of these three movies.

Iron Man 2

In the first movie the film makers managed to get the tone just right, for the sequel they are looking to add characters and up the action whilst maintaining this tone - keeping the right sense of humour. Filming is half way through and the majority of the spoken parts are complete, the next six weeks shall be dedicated to action scenes!

Thor

There will be no Shakespearean dialogue in the Thor movie, despite its usage in the comics. Some scenes will take place in Asgard.

Captain America

The first avenger movie shall be a period piece, set predominantly during WWII. It is hoped that the movie can capture a feeling similar to Raiders of the Lost Ark, with the same levels of fun. Sidekick Bucky (wiki) will also make an appearance, in some capacity.

As for director Joe Johnston,

A little bit of The Rocketeer, lots of October Sky, and a little bit of the ship designs that Johnston did for Star Wars, alluding to how this is the perfect movie for him to direct. “It’s the movie his entire career has been leading towards.”

We recently reported that the Iron Man sequel would be filming some big actions scenes at the Monaco Grand Prix. With this in mind, the latest news is that the Iron Man 2 crew are building an enormous Monaco GP set complete with replica racetrack at Downey Studios in Downey, California.

One commenter at SHH suggests,

This is supposed to be the famous car racing scene where..stark is drunk as ironman and gets pissed because he bet on a race car that is losing and sabotages the races and blows up all the other cars..causing himm to fear is a hero or a natural villain…good stuff?