So just how many villains does Iron Man 3 need? Already with Guy Pearce, Ben Kingsley, and James Badge Dale set to make Tony Stark's(Robert Downey Jr.) world an armor plated nightmare, Variety reports that yet another one is being added to the list. Ashley Hamilton, who is probably best known for being the son of George Hamilton and Alana Stewart, will play Firepower in the Shane Black-directed film. Hamilton also serves as one of those annoying correspondents on Extra, so presumably he'll be reporting about his own casting tomorrow.
Who the frig is Firepower? As with many blandly named characters in comics, there are multiple versions. The main one is Jack Taggert, who donned a high powered suit of armor for one of Tony Stark's rivals, and set out to destroy both the man and his company. The second one was mainly a War Machine enemy, and not an especially memorable one. Here's the cool thing, though. The Firepower armor actually turned up briefly in Iron Man 2 as one of the robotic drones controlled by Whiplash(Mickey Rourke). In the comics, Firepower is part of a larger plot involving The Mandarin hiring a number of armored heels to take on Iron Man all at once. With the collection of bad guys the film seems to be lining up we may be seeing that story played out in some way.
In rare good guy news, Jon Favreau has tweeted he will be reprising his role as Tony Stark buddy/lackey, Happy Hogan. Favreau directed the first two Iron Man flicks but left to pursue other projects, but has obviously maintained a good relationship with Disney. Of course, Hogan might end up on the business end of some armored goon's repulsor blast and wiped from the franchise entirely. So y'never know.
Iron Man 3(which just saw its budget boosted to $200M) is set to hit theaters on May 3rd 2013.
