Even The Los Angeles Times is getting into the hoopla surrounding Iron Man 2. The West Coast paper of record has promised an article a day about the sequel leading up until its May 7 release, and they're kicking things off with an odd but interesting scoop: apparently Jon Favreau once had Sam Rockwell on the shortlist to play Tony Stark. Favreau explained,
There was some things he would bring to the role that would have been great. Sam is very charismatic and when I was looking at the character there was a list and he had a spot on it, which might have surprised some people. Robert surprised some people, too, though, and now he is Tony Stark, he owns that role. Sam would have come up with interesting and different things."
Of course, Favreau has made things up to Rockwell a little bit by casting him as Justin Hammer, a rival industrialist who envies Tony Stark's new fame and eventually schemes along with Mickey Rourke's Whiplash to take him down. I guess some of that Stark envy will be coming from Rockwell's real-life regrets that he never got a chance to step into the red suit?
