After voicing his displeasure with Marvel Studios a couple of weeks back, Mickey Rourke has since elaborated on the problems he encountered on Iron Man 2 in an interview with Crave Online: “I explained to Justin Theroux, to the writer, and to Jon Favreau that I wanted to bring some other layers and colors, not just make this Russian a complete murderous revenging bad guy. And they allowed me to do that. Unfortunately, Marvel just wanted a one-dimensional bad guy, so most of the performance ended up the floor,” said Rourke in response to a question about the treatment of his character, Ivan Vanko (a.k.a. Whiplash), in the 2008 sequel starring Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson and Don Cheadle. “Well, you know, it is fucking too bad, but it’s their loss. If they want to make mindless comic book movies, then I don’t want to be a part of that.”
It’s not just Marvel Studios coming in for criticism from The Wrestler star, with Rourke seemingly pulling out of his latest project, Seven Psychopaths, with some choice words for the director, Martin McDonagh (In Bruges). “The director was a jerkoff. He wanted a whole lot for nothing,” the star told Moviefone. “He can go play with himself.” Rourke – who has also denied he was ever set to reunite with Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and company on the action sequel The Expendables 2 – will next be seen in Tarsem Singh’s fantasy adventure Immortals alongside Henry Cavill, Freida Pinto and Kellan Lutz, which opens in cinemas this coming Friday.
Originally published November 8, 2011. Updated November 6, 2019.
