- The footage opens in the giant donut and a conversation between Tony Stark and Nick Fury — Stark doesn’t want to join the team.
– It then cuts to a courtroom scene that sees the government attempting to strip Stark of his Iron Man suit
– Rhodey enters to testify against Stark.
– Whiplash is out to get Tony as revenge for the Stark families’ atrocities, explained by a voiceover whilst Rourke constructs a suit of his own.
– There’s a quick shot of Black Widow in action and then Whiplash flicking his two great electro-whips.
– Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) is now seen, talking about Iron Man suit modifications “firepower” — retrofitting guns and armor. Rhodey says he’ll take it.
– Then there’s a quick shot of the complete War Machine suit.

Description via SHH

As mentioned before, the footage opened with Iron Man sitting in a giant donut enjoying one of those fine pastries when Sam Jackson shows up as Nick Fury and shouts to him, “Stark, I’m going to have to ask you to exit the donut!” Then they’re in the coffee shop and Stark is telling Fury he doesn’t want to join his “super secret boy band,” and Fury says that he remembers that Stark likes doing everything himself. Stark jokes that he’s not sure whether he should be looking at Fury’s patch or his eye and suggest that maybe Fury is a figment of his imagination, but Fury assures him that he is “very real, I’m the realest person you’re ever going to meet.” “Just my luck,” responds Stark.

The courtroom scene is fairly revealing about one of the main plotpoints, which involves the government wanting to get the Iron Man armor away from Stark, because they consider it a “specialized weapon” that they should own. The scene starts with Shandling’s Senator Stern banging his gavel on the table to call the hearings to order, suggesting they continue where they left off and when he tries to get Stark’s attention, Stark quips, “Yes, dear?” Stern wants to know whether Stark considers the armor a “specialized weapon” but Stark says that he sees it more as a “hi-tech prosthetic.” But Stern insists that it is a weapon, and they go back and forth for a little while with the type of quick dialogue that was all over the first movie. Stark ends the discussion by saying, “I am Iron Man, the suit and I are one” and he suggests that turning over the suit would be “tantamount to indentured servitude or prostitution.” When Stern begins to respond that he’s no expert, Stark says, “In prostitution? Of course not, you’re a senator.” Stern then calls Lt. Col. James Rhodes to the stand and Cheadle walks in, met halfway down the aisle by Stark who says he’s surprised to see his friend Rhodey being called to testify against him. Rhodey responds, “It’s me, I’m here, deal with it and let’s move on.” (That first bit sounds like a response to the fact that Cheadle was replacing Terrence Howard in the role.) Stern asks if Stark is trying to make a point to which Downey gives one of those great speeches from the first movie, claiming to be a “nuclear detterent” who is keeping America safe, saying that he has successfully “privatized world peace.” “What more do you want?” he asks to cheers from the courtroom (and the audience). He gets the senator so riled up that he yells, “F*ck you, Mr. Stark” but it’s bleeped by the CNN cameras.

Watching the scene with Mickey Rourke as Whiplash was much easier to hear and understand a second time as the audience remained a lot quieter, and essentially the voiceover reveals that Whiplash is getting revenge on some of the things that the Stark family has done in the past. The voiceover explains this as Rourke’s character sits at the workbench soldering his own bit of technology that will turn him into Whiplash. The voiceover starts something like, “You come from world of thieves and butchers” and it talks about how Tony is forgetting how many lives the Stark family has destroyed with their actions. It states that there will be blood in the water and the sharks will come, which is clearly referring to himself and the Black Widow, who we see briefly in action, and then Rourke lets out a great laugh. As mentioned earlier, the quickly cut footage leads to the first look at Whiplash in his full costume (similar to the picture that was released a few weeks ago) and he’s whipping these insane energy whips on the ground sending up sparks. That leads into a shot of Iron Man flying through the air and the new “Iron Man 2″ logo to the opening chords of the Sabbath song.

The last bit clearly ties into the courtroom scene earlier where Rhodey is remaining faithful to his government like a good soldier and they have called upon weapons expert Justin Hammer, played by Sam Rockwell, to modify the first wave Iron Man armor into something more suitable of either taking on or replacing Stark’s Iron Man. Hammer walks up to the original Iron Man lying on a table asking what they did to it, which Rhodes says is classified then asks what Hammer is going to do for them. “I’m talking about firepower,” he clarifies. Hammer says they’re talking to the right guy and he starts pulling out all sorts of guns and weapons to retrofit on the armor, but doesn’t seem to be getting much reaction from Rhodes or the general, even with something he calls “Uncle Gazpacho or Puff the Magic Dragon.” Cheadle says “I think I’ll take it…” and when Hammer asks which one, Rhodey responds, “All of it.” And then we see our first look at the retrofitted Iron Man armor as WAR MACHINE, which looks BAD-ASS!!

Description via /Film

Tony Stark is eating a donut while laying in the hole of the huge donut on the roof of Randy’s Donuts. Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury yells up “Sir, I’m gonna have to ask you to exit the donut!”

Cut to: Stark and Fury inside the restaurant eating and chatting. Stark asks if Fury was going to ask him to join his group again, to which Nick responds “I remember, you do everything yourself. How is that working out for you?” Stark asks Fury if he is supossed to look at his working eye or the eye patch.

Cut to: A government court hearing, where Tony is talking with Pepper Potts a few rows behind him. Senator Stern Asks Tony if he posseses a weapon, the iron man weapon. Stark says that its not a weapon, and that technically it’s a high tech prosthesis.

“Its a weapon Mr Stark!

“If your priority was to protect…”

“Well you can forget it!”

“I am Iron Man, the suit and I am one. You cant have it!”

The Senator calls Rhodey to the stand. Rhodey walks by Stark and tells him he’ll deal with it.

The Senator asks Stark what his point is and Stark responds that his point is “You’re welcome, I’m your nuclear deterrent,” … “I’ve kept the world safe, what more do you want? I tried to play ball with these ass clowns!” The Senator then says “F— You Mr. Stark!”

A montage begins with shots of newspapers and magazines with Stark on the cover. Voice over in a Russian accent “You come from a family of thieves and butchers…” Shots of Rourke putting together his whiplash suit. A bunch of random shots, including a bunch of girls dancing in front of a display with the American flag, and Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, kicking ass. Rourke arrives at the race car track in his Whiplash suit. He activates it and the wires light up with electricity as he whips them around. Stark is bloody, in his racing suit, down on the concrete. We see a close-up of Rourke laughing.

Cut to: Iron Man flying through the night air, dodging missiles which explode behind him, as he blasts towards Earth.

The Iron Man 2 logo appears on the screen, along with the music.

Then we get an extra sequence. Rhodey in a air plane hanger. Justin Hammer walks over and asks what this is about and Rhodey says it’s classified. Hammer looks down at a suit, which appears to be Stark’s old Mark II armor. “Is that what I think it is?” “What can you do for us?” Hammer shows Rhodey a bunch of different weaponry. Rhodey tells Hammer “I think i’ll take it.” “Which one?” “All of it.” Cut to: A shot of War Machine blasting off his guns.

Don Cheadle interview

MTV cornered Don Cheadle at SDCC, allowing him to comment on War Machine:

“War Machine makes a very impactful appearance in the movie. It’s significant.”

And Iron Man 2, in which he plays Tony Stark’s tattooed Russian nemesis, Ivan, is possibly the biggest movie yet in Rourke’s new career. For Rourke this means going to Russia, drinking vodka and visiting jails to study prison tattoos and find his character’s tics. “I decided to do half my role in Russian,” he beams, “and that’s hard because the Russian language doesn’t roll off the English-speaking tongue very easily. I spent three hours a day with a teacher, and after two weeks I know four sentences! Let me see, it’s sort of like… ‘Yezzamee menya… Yezzamee manya obott… Er, nemaboootty menya…’”

This goes on for quite some time. “It means,” he says, finally, “If someone kills me, don’t wake me up, because I’d rather be dead than live in your world.”

But the land of blockbuster movies is not somewhere Rourke plans to stay long. “I’m not gonna rush out and see the next Batman, I’m not big on formula movies. I don’t like all that Spider-Man shit.”

“Tony’s expected to be a role model and I don’t think he’s ready to be one. He’s under a great deal of pressure and when you’re under pressure, I think you find outlets for that. That’s one of the tensions of the film: it’s one thing to say you’re Iron Man, and another thing to actually become Iron Man.”

“Rhodesy is definitely stepping up in this film. Let me put it this way: Tony’s not the only person with technology in the film.”

Meanwhile, Mickey Rourke comments on his Whiplash suit (we’ve already seen a possible concept piece for this)

“I’m having the time of my life! […] It’s been really brutal, because my Iron Man suit weighs 23lb. It’s sort of a half-suit, with half my skin showing, with lots of Russian tattoos, because [Whiplash is just] out of a Russian-zone prison.”

Excerpts from Collider’s interview:

Remember when filming began and word leaked that Gary Shandling was in the film and no one was really sure what part he played? Robert told us about the first day of filming and how Gary plays a Senator:
Robert: Day one I’m doing a Senate hearing where the government is saying the Iron Man tech needs to be turned over to the Senator and the Senator is Gary Shandling. And we had this fantastic day that was somehow this controlled chaos of a Senate hearing where I keep interrupting them and dah dah dah.

Another bit that Robert told us was how he is taking “Iron Man 2” more seriously than any movie he has ever done:
Robert: And I’ve never been in a sequel and it’s very daunting because I feel the expectation of the millions of people who watched it and enjoyed it and told me that it was a little different than your usual genre picture and that they expected us to not screw it up. So I actually have taken “Iron Man 2” probably more seriously than any movie I’ve ever done, which is appropriately ridiculous for Hollywood.

On Jon Favreau posting Twitter updates from the set:
Jon is my brother and he is the keeper of the “Iron Man” flame and whatever he wants to do, within reason, to keep his anxieties at bay is absolutely fine with me.

On the way the suit has been improved from the first film:
Everything has been improved. Everything is ergonomic and the story is incredibly risky and artistic for a big genre movie.

In which way risky?
The set pieces have to do with things that aren’t your typical like bad guy conflict. The relationships are very complex and hilarious. The motivations Tony has and why he turns around and does things has completely to do with his own internal processes and it really is, I think, as much as we tried to in the first one really see behind the façade of this kind of storytelling. We really, I think, leaving ourselves open to…we’re kind of trying to tell a story about how a dysfunctional family saves life on Earth as we know it.

For this film you have Mickey Rourke, Sam Rockwell. You have an insane cast.
It’s huge.

Could you talk about working with Mickey?
I could if we shot together. I’ve seen his stuff and it is literally remarkable. Literally remarkable. He’s so good. And he’s formidable and he’s very much reminding me of that kind of charming, confident guy that we know. Sam Rockwell, on the first day of shooting I was like “if this guy thinks he’s going to be funnier and cooler than me (laughter) and it was a photo-finish. Scarlett Johansson, amazing. Don Cheadle is just rocking it.

“The film is almost entirely about character, and yet we still have twice as much action as we did last time, so it’s going to be nuts. […] Essentially ‘Iron Man 2′ is about looking behind the armor, or the armature, of a superhero. It’s one thing to say you’re Iron Man, it’s another thing to be fully ready to do that.”

As for Scarlett Johansson,

“We’ve been rehearsing and she’s in insane shape. She’s getting lean and mean.”

RDJ has also been speaking to MTV about potential Iron Man 2 storylines:

“I think [Demon in a Bottle is] probably best saved, because it’s such its own storyline,” Downey told MTV. “We’re going for the interim space [between the origin and Demon], which is more a look behind the mask of someone who says he’s Iron Man and what it really is to become a superhero.”

Video after the break

The Iron Man 2 content comes towards the end of the video:

JT: We’ve kind of got a first draft around. You know what I mean? I just got back from London where I was working with Robert and Kevin Feige. He was out there. We were talking with Robert, who’s out there doing Sherlock Holmes, he was giving his input and his notes. We’re sort of there. It’s just sort of chugging along. The crews, I think, are now starting to see what they need to make, and the places that we might be going and all the rest within the story. That’s sort of one of the more exciting times.

UGO: So you weren’t involved in the whole Don Cheadle/Terrence Howard…or were and you want to tell me something…

JT: No, I wasn’t. I genuinely wasn’t. (laughs)

UGO: There have been reports that the role of War Machine was scaled back and then beefed up.

JT: No, that’s all nonsense. Whatever their reason is, I’ll leave that up to Marvel. We’re writing the thing, virtually the same for Rhodey that we would for any actor. We’re really taking what’s going to be the most interesting story for the fans, and what are they going to enjoy watching. And who ever’s in that part is going to have to play that part and make it work for Jon (Favreau) and the fans who are watching the movie.

UGO: So the size of the role wasn’t ever changed?

JT: No. God, no.

UGO: So did you have to, or did you try to accommodate Don Cheadle’s acting style?

JT: I think that will probably be something that comes up…I haven’t met Don, and I think I’m going to in a little bit and I think once I get a better sense of his voice and also hear what he has to say about what he likes about the character and just pick his brain a little bit, then we’ll obviously start to tailor it to him. Once he sort of gets more involved in the process then we’ll start tapering the length of his character…making it fit just right.

UGO: Everyone’s speculating about the villain. Are we talking Mandarin? Or Evil DJ?

JT: (laughs) I think it’s Evil DJ. He could be the villain in this movie. I don’t know. I mean, I do know but I’m not going to let that cat out. I’ll let Jon start discussing when he thinks it’s the right time.

UGO: Considering that everyone’s coming together for the Avengers movie, were you ever told that certain things had to be in the story or that things had to go a certain way?

JT: No. I mean, I think we’re all sort of conscious of the fact that all these people…it is the Marvel universe, but that’s really about as far as we’ve been made…they haven’t given us any instruction as far as we want you to do this or we want you to do that. And really it’s not really a they/us kind of environment, the way they work. It’s just a bunch of guys and girls sitting in a room, trying to come up with stuff and doing what’s right for the movie and what, at the end of the day, is going to be the most interesting film that can be made. Kind of a fun film. I think once we’re sort of locked on that we’ll be able to think about how we can thread things through. There’s a couple little things that we’ve been working on, but it’s not that we’ve been taking meetings with Avengers people. It’s not like we’re six screenwriters sitting in a room from each movie and thinking about how we’re gonna work on each other’s things.

UGO: Have you written Stan Lee’s cameo yet?

JT: No, I don’t think so. (laughs) I don’t know, I don’t know. Jon will anoint him with that cameo, I’m sure.

UGO: Gwyneth Paltrow is still listed as “rumored”. Is she confirmed?

JT: I don’t know. I don’t know if she’s confirmed or not…I’m planning like she is there but I have no idea.

UGO: Finally, what voice do you think you bring to the script, to make it different from the last one?

JT: I’m not really trying to bring a different voice. I’m trying to mimic and sing in the same key as the script that was there before. If anything, I think I bring a knowledge of the way Robert’s mind works. I’ve worked with him once before. Hopefully I’ve proven I have some modicum of creative relationship with Jon and Marvel. So I really think my job is to work with them and not try and strike any new chords. Of course we want to make the story different and interesting. We want the action to be really good. But I think my job is really just to…serve the ultimate guy, which is Iron Man.