Earlier this year, Iron Man 3 director Shane Black revealed to Uproxx’s Mike Ryan that the film originally had a female in the main villain role ultimately played by Guy Pierce, but someone Black didn’t name (but who was possibly Isaac Perlmutter) gave the order to change the character’s gender because they “decided that toy won’t sell as well if it’s a female.”
Ah yes, what child wasn’t clamoring for an Aldrich Killian action figure in 2013?
The news of how Marvel rejected what would have been their first female main villain was infuriating, and now the would-be main villain Rebecca Hall told her side of that story to Postmedia Network at the Toronto International Film Festival, where her film Christine is screening today. Hall said Black’s statement was “100% true” and she seemed happy to finally talk about it.
“I signed on to do something that was a substantial role. She wasn’t entirely the villain — there have been several phases of this — but I signed on to do something very different to what I ended up doing. Halfway through shooting they were basically like, ‘What would you think if you just got shot out of nowhere?’ I was meant to be in the movie until the end… I grappled with them for awhile and then I said, ‘Well, you have to give me a decent death scene and you have to give me one more scene with Iron Man,’ which Robert Downey Jr. supported me on.”
That has got to be an infuriating turn of events for an actor, so we can’t blame Hall for expressing a bit of schadenfreude toward criticisms Marvel received.
“Look, (Marvel) is paying for their mistakes right now,” she smiled, “and I applaud them for casting Brie Larson in Captain Marvel. Hallelujah. It’s about time women started being the heroes of things. They can also be the anti-heroes of the things and that’s what I feel I’m getting to do with Christine.”
And maybe someday they can be the main villain, too.
(Via the Toronto Sun)
