When Iron Man 3 was released in 2013, fans were disappointed over the studio's version of the Mandarin. People expected a daunting villain like they saw in the trailers, but the character appeared to be just some low-rate actor hired to pretend to be a terrorist. A year later, the studio released Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King, a short film/action showing a series of interviews with Kingsley's "Mandarin" impersonator Trevor Slattery to find out if the Ten Rings really does exist.
Apparently, while it appeared as if Marvel had everything planned out the entire time – the disappointing portrayal of the villain in Iron Man 3 then the All Hail the King release – the studio simply created the short film to simmer down the backlash.
In an interview with Uproxx, Iron Man 3 director Shane Black said All Hail the King was made as an apology to upset fans. He revealed:
Marvel saw so many negative things they made a whole other movie just to apologize called Hail to the King. In which they said, 'No, no, the Mandarin is still alive. That wasn't him. There's a real Mandarin.' The only reason they made that was an apology to fans who were so angry.
Two years have passed since Iron Man 3 and the true Mandarin still hasn't been revealed. From the looks of Phase Three now, it seems unlikely that the villain will be appearing at all. There may be hope yet with Phase Four, especially if Iron Man 4 breaks ground. Hopefully, the studio will be able to take advantage of the potentials that the Mandarin has of being a formidable opponent to Tony Stark. If there's one thing the MCU lacks, it's their development of strong, villain storylines unlike how the heroes are developed.
Yesterday, we also reported of Black revealing the ridiculous reason why Marvel scrapped his original female villain storyline for Iron Man 3. With all these mistakes out in the open, could this be Black hinting at the things he doesn't want to happen in an Iron Man 4 film?
That remains to be seen and that would beg the question, do fans want to see a fourth Iron Man movie?
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