Next summer’s Iron Man movie, which I must say is looking far cooler than I ever would have envisioned, is already being touted as a trilogy, if it does well. The cast (now including Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges) and director, per the usual precautions, has already been signed for all three films if necessary. If you don’t do this, you might have a major star defect, like Katie Holmes for the next Batman movie, The Dark Knight. Oh, wait, that’s right. Nobody cares. I guess Christian Bale’s a bit more important. As for Downey, he says he’s having ‘nerd-gasms’ over playing this part. Who knew?
This kind of pre-planning isn’t a bad idea, though, if only because you can actually plan a story-arc for the three films, and not have the sequels be quite as slapdash. The trend to pre-sign the major players for continuity’s sake is also a very good idea. From Spider-Man to the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, such continuity is helping to keep these series both popular and less endangered by quality drop-off.
