In all the breathless excitement, possibility and release date for Iron Man 2, it's always good to step back and hear from the main men. You might be surprised (and maybe relieved) to know they haven't really started thinking about the sequel yet. On the other hand, one immediately begins to panic, thinking "Dear God, they won't actually ditch Jon Favreau, will they?" To answer that, Entertainment Weekly sat down with both Robert Downey Jr. and Favreau, the weariness apparent in their voices as they tried to actually comprehend doing it all again.

Let's start with Stark himself on where the sequel will go. "There's this idea of Terrence [Howard] putting on a suit and coming back as War Machine, who is pretty iconic in the Iron Man and Marvel universe. Just seeing where it can all go, but grounding it in a very modern mythology. I see it as the greatest dysfunctional family story ever told .... In The New York Post a couple days ago, [there was a cartoon] of Iron Man suited up, and he's telling the governor even his super-powers can't get him out of the budget problem. That was what Jon was hoping for and excited to see the most, the idea that Tony Stark and Iron Man can become part of the cultural fabric. When we heard posters were being defaced to promote political or social ideas, he just got such a hoot out of that."


As to whether Stark's alcoholism will become a prominent part, again, that is still to be decided. "Interestingly, Tony's Achilles heel isn't that he boozes too hard and then he winds up becoming an alcoholic in the genesis; his character defect is narcissism. I think there's a way to capitalize on that, and if you want to use the drinking as a metaphor to that, that's fine. But in and of itself, I don't think it's any more interesting than having a superhero who has cancer. That's why I think the mythology of these things is cool, because a Gamma Ray means a lot more than a gamma ray, whereas a non-specific urethritis can be only that. Again, I defer to Jon. He really, really crafted this thing in a way that was so smart. And, also, what I love is that kids are enjoying it. It's important to me, strangely, in my old age, to do something that is appropriate and still entertaining and engaging and evocative, and is about more than you might expect it to be about. I mean, clearly, I'm going to have a lot more juice at the writing table than I did a few years ago." Nor has Downey Jr. decided how many times he will don the armor, or if he will be involved in The Avengers.

Favreau was even more noncommittal, which is really quite terrifying. "We've been speaking informally about it, and in concept we would all love to work together again. But I found out about the announcement last night, so it's not something that - we would definitely love to collaborate more with the sequel. There's no formal arrangement yet, but in theory we would all love to see it happen .... There's definitely a lot of ideas that we all have now. This type of movie is based on serialized materials, so it lends itself very easily to [many different sequel possibilities]. There's definitely a level of enthusiasm from myself and the cast to tell more stories." Of course, it seems insanity not to bring him back -- but we all know stranger, sicker things have happened at movie studios.

If you want to read the full interviews, Downey Jr.'s can be found here, and Favreau here. He talks quite a bit about Nick Fury, so it's worth a read.