Favreau off "Iron Man 3"

Yeah, I know I'm late. Busy time of year.

Anyway, as everyone already knows by now, Jon Favreau has bowed-out of directing "Iron Man 3."

Certainly not great news, but hardly surprising - both sides were very upfront about not getting along during the production of the sequel (re: Marvel Films insisting on the plot being reworked in order to stress Avengers/Thor/Cap continuity connections) - and probably the best thing for most involved: Favreau already has two big actioners on his plate with "Cowboys & Aliens" and Disney's big tentpole "The Magic Kingdom" (think "Night at The Museum," but in DisneyLand); while Marvel will hardly find itself short of less-expensive action directors looking to take a swing at it.

What it DOES highlight is the now-apparent fact that Marvel has decided to run their movie studio more-or-less the same way you run a comic book company; i.e. the policy seems to be: "These are OUR characters. You (directors, writers, actors, etc) can play around with them to an extent - but at the end of the day we have an editorial plan about continuity and where they need to end up."

On the one hand, you can see how that'd be stifling to some filmmakers. On the other hand... maybe it's the best way to handle project(s) like this, especially given the "fandom first" approach Marvel keeps taking on these things. They seem more interested in getting movie versions of the comics onscreen, as opposed to having their material serving as "outlines" for filmmakers to make new entities out of, basically. I mean... imagine if someone from, say, Hasbro had been able to veto Michael Bay in the planning stages for "Transformers?"