The curtain has now been lifted on Marvel's somewhat-secret Marvel One Shot, titled All Hail the King, and as many predicted it is indeed the film Ben Kingsley was hinting at before. Part of the Thor: The Dark World Blu-Ray, the story will mark the return of Kingsley's Mandarin character from Iron Man 3, which is sure to rekindle what has been a very divisive debate about his true nature. That nature is a major part of EW's plot description accompanying the first images, so if you have yet to see Iron Man 3, consider this a spoiler warning....
"Ben Kingsley’s dim-witted Mandarin impersonator from Iron Man 3, who has been locked away in a maximum security prison and is reveling in his newfound infamy. (It’s as close to fame as he’s ever gotten.)"
The story has Kingsley's character, Trevor Slattery, sharing stories with a documentary filmmaker played by Scoot McNairy. So consider this McNairy's intro into the Marvel Universe, which is pretty awesome all by itself. Iron Man 3 co-writer Drew Pearce wrote and directed the short, which shows Slattery indulging in his newfound celebrity, even behind bars...
Pearce: "When we find Trevor at the beginning of this short, other than Tony [Stark], he’s the only one out of 'Iron Man 3' to get what he wanted. And even though he was arrested and beat up and had guns pointed at him, now he’s the celebrity that he always wanted to be and he loves it. He absolutely loves it. He is living a somewhat curtailed version of the celebrity life, but he’s also leading arguably a better life than he did when he was living with, like, four other actors at the age of 52 in some bedsit in the south of London. That’s the other fun thing about the starting point is that when we meet Trevor in the short, Trevor won. The Mandarin didn’t, but Trevor in his own way was victorious."
But Slattery's "victory" may come with a price, especially from a particular terrorist group that has been made to look quite foolish...
Pearce: "Imagine a real terrorist organization whose beliefs were long held and religious for thousands of years, and imagine a drunk, British actor coming along and essentially telling the world that he’s the face of your organization. I think they would be right to be quite angry."
Pearce won't go so far as to say the short is a set-up for Iron Man 4, but he does say it could tie-in to the larger Marvel cinematic universe. Look closely at the images and you'll see Slattery is holed up in Seagate Prison, which happens to be crucial to the origin of one Luke Cage....
Pearce: "I think short movies in general, whether they’re Marvel ones or not, you kind of want them to feel like they’re opening you up to a bigger world. Yeah, I definitely think there are – the non-spoiler way for me to say it — by the end of the short, there are definitely a lot of exciting other places that are brought up in it that could then go in the Marvel universe. You know, whether that’s an Iron Man movie or another one going into Phase Two or Three."
Thor: The Dark World hits store shelves on February 25th, but you can pre-order it now.
