WonderCon: "Iron Man" Panel

Tony Stark discovers his car needs stronger suspension.

At WonderCon Saturday, Hall A at the Moscone Center in San Francisco was packed to capacity with fans hoping for a new glimpse at the upcoming Paramount feature, "Iron Man" directed by Jon Favreau. Favreau came out and immediately dove into Q&A. Things started slowly with a question about the use of the Ozzy Osbourne song ("We dealt with Sharon") and how the cast got along ("We had a great time with a great cast. Hope to make more with them")

Then a fan came up to ask, "How hard was the Jet boot effect to do?" Favreau seemed a little flustered then asked if the crowd wanted to see scenes of the billionaire playboy working out the Jet Boots? The rousing cheer that followed drowned out the start of the clip that was both funny and very true to the Marvel character, as he painfully perfects the Golden Avenger's flight ability.

Questions resumed with a young fan asking if Favreau was inspired by something? "I was inspired by the box office for 'Zathura,'" a reference to the poor return on the Favreau directed film. He then pointed out that it is important that filmmakers maintain a dialogue with fans. The voices of the fans were responsible for getting "Iron Man" this far and keeping it a project that they would want to see.

Iron Man, out for a nightime fly.

Stan Winston's work inspired Favreau and it was something he couldn't pass up. He admitted that Stan Winston originally suggested making the suits practically instead of digitally and that Favreau was skeptical until he saw what they did. Favreau is an admitted luddite, but will use computer graphics as a tool when necessary.

Favreau then reassured the audience that James Rhodes (played by Terrence Howard) is a supporting character and Howard can be a superhero to work with. Rhodey will be a button down Air Force officer, at first, and then become a buddy to Stark, but the story is still the similar to the character fans recognize. Favreau then made an off the cuff reference to an Avengers movie maybe happening if this movie works.

A self-professed "very big" Iron Man fan asked if Favreau was familiar with "Iron Man 2020?" Favreau didn't know the character but promised he would look into him as long as he was a drunk, since that was looking to be problematic for a family friendly film like this.

The next fan wanted to know if Vince Vaughn might do another Favreau movie. Favreau answered that he is in an upcoming Vaughn movie playing Vaughn's cage wrestler brother and Robert Duvall is their father.

Still of Jon Favreau's cameo in "Iron Man"

Favreau then made an aside about his newfound respect for directors Michal Bay and Steven Spielberg being able to shoot a lot of nothing then make it into something. Working with CGI in movies definitely is much harder than he expected.

The next question was with regards to seeing other Iron Man armors? Favreau told all assembled about merchandising ensuring that we will see more armors. The need to have new things to sell means that they can always find new special use armors to showcase in the films. Favreau lovingly mocked the Marvel comic underwater armor as a bit hokey, but really likes the idea that Stark would see reasons to have specialized versions of Iron Man. Favreau mentioned that three different armors appear in the movie and War machine is explored.

Favreau was then asked about rumors on the Internet that "Hulk" and "Iron Man" movies will crossover. Favreau admitted it is true -- that there are rumors on the internet. "Many are true, but many rumors are not."

Favreau finished by telling everyone that this week during ABC's "Lost" is a new 90 second trailer that he couldn't show the panel…and then he closed the panel by showing the new 2 ½ minute trailer that will debut in front of "10,000 B.C." and is expected to be available for download in the next week.

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