This interview contains spoilers for Iron Man 3.
So, well start at the beginning.
How did this get started?
Did you pitch the idea to Marvel, did they pitch it to you?
How did the ball get rolling?
Oh, it came from us, definitely.
Go and write it.
So I did, I wrote it in my hotel room that night!
Obviously youre best known as a writer, so what prompted this shift?
But this gave me an opportunity to get back into directing, which I sorely missed.
And totally true, unfortunately!
Okay, so, because were Den Of Geek Im going to get the geeky questions in…
I love that you think I wont be getting geeky questions from everyone.
I bet I can outdo them.
So what I want to know is where that came from.
Its interesting, actually.
A lot of things go in just from the imagination or will of a very tiny creative team.
Plus its probably the most iconic of the Marvel Universe prisons.
Was this One-Shot specifically intended as your take on that story?
Id love to say that was my intent.
Obviously Ive read that annual, I think its called theStory of My Life?
I think its one of the great runs on the character.
Its as epoch-making and definitive as anyone else has been since the beginning.
I consume his ideas voraciously and probably copied every one of them, subconsciously.
So while it may well have been in there, it wasnt my starting point.
Partly, thats because its about a very different Mandarin and takes a very different turn.
Its arguably the darkest story in all ofInvincible Iron Man, its just super-dark!
And I love it for that.
But truthfully, everything about the premise comes down to the practicality of making a short film like this.
So an interview seemed like a good way into that.
So back to questions that people other than me might be interested in… Was it a case of If I dont do this, someone else will?
So one of the things we were looking at was false faces.
In relation to Tony, hes dealing with Iron Man suddenly being a bigger face than his own.
And now were done, the journey of the man they called the Mandarin can continue in different forms.
It is genuinely incredible, I couldve watched him for hours.
We were so flabbergasted.
Sometimes its what they build on which just makes you go I never saw that coming!
even though you wrote it.
Tell me about it!
I wish I knew, but a tiny campaign to get it on DVD or Blu-ray would be amazing.
Its actually BBC Video that hold the rights to it.
Ill have to see if we can start a movement then, because its been way too long.
Yeah, do it!
Drew Pearce, thank you very much.
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