Iron Man 3's female villain got axed over fears of poor toy sales, director claims
'We had finished the script and we were given a no-holds-barred memo saying that cannot stand and we’ve changed our minds because, after consulting, we’ve decided that toy won’t sell as well if it’s a female'
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Your support makes all the difference.Wherever Disney has sought to be forward-thinking in their inclusion of women, it seems as if their merchandising brand is forever letting the team down.
Even on the female-led Star Wars: The Force Awakens, fans will still struggle to find Rey amongst its merchandise; with the film's branded Monopoly board only begrudgingly adding the character after widespread protest. On the Marvel side of things, the brand has consistently failed to market Black Widow toys and merchandise; even though she's a central character in the Avengers films, and even though 42% of audiences for Avengers: Age of Ultron were female.
Rather depressingly, it's now come to light that these backwards merchandising tactics have even infiltrated into the creative business of moviemaking itself. Speaking to Uproxx, Iron Man 3's director Shane Black revealed the film was originally intended to have a female villain, with the character being axed over concerns a female toy wouldn't sell as well.
It appears as if Rebecca Hall's Maya Hansen was at one point intended to be the film's real villain; all before merchandising pressures handed the antagonist role to Guy Pearce's Aldrich Killian. "Rebecca Hall’s character was bigger at one point and we reduced it," Black admitted. "All I’ll say is this, on the record: There was an early draft of Iron Man 3 where we had an inkling of a problem."
"We had finished the script and we were given a no-holds-barred memo saying that cannot stand and we’ve changed our minds because, after consulting, we’ve decided that toy won’t sell as well if it’s a female. So, we had to change the entire script because of toy making."
"In the earlier draft, the woman was essentially Killian – and they didn’t want a female Killian, they wanted a male Killian. I liked the idea, like Remington Steele, you think it’s the man but at the end, the woman has been running the whole show. They just said, 'no way'."
Yet, Black wants to clarify this decision was made in the era before a structural change saw Marvel Studios begin to operate independently of Marvel corporate, with it now reporting directly to Disney. "Now, that’s not [Mavel Studios head Kevin] Feige," Black stated. "That’s Marvel corporate, but now you don’t have that problem anymore. If you ever say anything about decisions made at Marvel, I hope you’ll qualify it by saying that Kevin Feige is the guy who gets it right."
Indeed, there's hope this kind of short-sighted decision won't happen again in the future, considering Cate Blanchett has been attached to play a villain role in Thor: Ragnarok. And who wouldn't want Cate Blanchett action figures?
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