Shane Black Reveals Why Initial Plans for a Female Villain in 'Iron Man 3' were Scrapped
Shane Black, who's set to take the Predator franchise in a brand new direction, has revealed that the original villain for his Iron Man 3 script was initially female, before being gender-swapped prior to production.
"There was an early draft of 'Iron Man 3' where we had an inkling of a problem - which is that we had a female character who was the villain in the draft," Black said in an interview with Uproxx.
"We had finished the script and we were given a no-holds-barred memo saying 'that cannot stand and we've changed our minds because, after consulting, we've decided that toy won't sell as well if it's a female.'"
Black also went on to reveal that many of the female roles in the film were reduced, including Stephanie Szostak's and Rebecca Hall's. "In the earlier draft, the woman was essentially Killian - and they didn't want a female Killian, they wanted a male Killian.
"I liked the idea, like 'Remington Steele,' you think it's the man but at the end, the woman has been running the whole show. They just said, 'no way.'" He did clarify that Marvel president Kevin Feige had nothing to do with the decision, and that "we had to change the entire script because of toy making."
