Ben Kingsley to play villain in Iron Man 3?

Crossing fingers for The Mandarin
by Reymundo Salao

With the release of the AVENGERS movie late this month, it is expected that each of the Marvel character movies such as Thor and Captain America will continue. The Iron Man franchise will also continue with IRON MAN 3. Jon Faveau has already declined from taking on the third movie, which means that a new director is yet to be officially announced. Ben Kingsley is currently in talks to play the villain in the third movie. Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Scarlett Johansson will all be reprising their roles from the previous films.

The Mandarin is one villain that has been set up from the first movie (one of the characters in the first movie says that he is a member of an organization known as The Five Rings, which seems to be an obvious reference to the said villain), and his appearance has been highly anticipated by Iron Man geeks since the first movie. The Mandarin is one of the major Iron Man arch-villains in the comics, he is a Chinese supervillain who wields the power of ten mystic (or alien) rings.

What seems to have been set up in the first movie, and what may likely be a treatment that is fit on its more realistic world (than several of the Iron Man interpretations), is that Mandarin may be the head of a terrorist organization.

On the other hand, according to Collider, insiders have denied The Mandarin speculation and said that the storyline is loosely based on Warren Ellis’ Extremis series that focused on nanotechnology; that the plot of Iron Man 3 would involve nanobot technology that Tony Stark incorporates into his suit, with the conflict coming in the form of a nanobot virus.

Not to be stubborn about the issue, could it not be possible that it is the Mandarin and his organization be the ones responsible with the release of this nanobot virus? On the other hand, I was also positively curious of the concept of Iron Man facing off a more mystic-oriented enemy, by that time, with the first Avengers movie already done with, it would have already set-up the atmosphere that these characters can have various types of enemies, from the realistic ultra-high-tech to the mystic. That's why I'm rooting for the Mandarin.

Production on the film is set to get underway in May, and the film's release date is set on the 3rd of May, 2013.