Great news! According to Variety, Robert Downey Jr. will not only be reprising his role as Tony Stark in two upcoming Iron Man movies but he will be acting in the upcoming superhero movie, "The Avengers" as well. Iron Man director Jon Favreau will also be directing Iron Man 2 which is slated to be released on May 7, 2010 and The Avengers which has a release date of July 15, 2011.

The negotiations have just begun, and it’s just impossible to know how much of this is simply business as usual, with the delay being due to Marvel’s current focus on The Incredible Hulk.

Meanwhile, Marvel has unveiled the roster of superhero movies it plans to release during the next three years:

• Thor — June 4, 2010
• The First Avenger: Captain America — May 6, 2011
• The Avengers — July 2011 (bringing together the characters of Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, Captain America, and Thor in one movie!)
• Ant-Man — In development

I can’t wait! Can you?

Made by the Wachowski brothers, best known for the “Matrix” franchise, the kaleidoscopic “Speed Racer” is unlikely to recoup its $120 million budget, experts said.

“Unfortunately, it didn’t perform to our expectations,” said Dan Fellman, president of Warner Bros. theatrical distribution.

Iron Man, played by Robert Downey Jr., opened last weekend with $100.8 million, the second-highest opening ever for a non sequel since Spider-Man debuted in 2002.

Leslie looks really adorable in it! Check it out: -

Thanks, Parisa!

SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The first prototype of Iron Man

Iron Man stars Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) as a billionaire industrialist whose core business is making weapons. While testing Stark Industries’ latest missile creation called "The Jericho" in Afghanistan, he is kidnapped by a ruthless Middle Eastern terrorist organization who called themselves "Ten Rings".

The film then goes back 36 hours earlier to show what happens before Stark’s journey in Afghanistan, which includes a one-night stand with a reporter named Christine Everhart (Leslie Bibb).

Back to the future, though critically injured and almost die, Stark is saved by Yinsen (Shaun Toub), a mysterious stranger who comes to his rescue. Miraculously, Yinsen is multilingual and knows many languages, from Arab to Urdu to Mongolian. Yinsen uses an electromagnet which keeps the shrapnel from piercing Stark’s heart.

As the terrorists of "Ten Rings" enters the cave Stark and Yinsen are hiding, they both surrender and Stark is forced to create "The Jericho" missile for them. As Yinsen persuades Stark to find a way out of there, Stark first creates a very technologically-advanced heart for himself before building the rest of Iron Man. When the leader of Ten Rings suspects Stark is not working on "The Jericho" missile, he almost kills Yinsen whose life is only spared as Stark undoubtedly tells the terrorist leader that he needs Yinsen as he is a good assistant. Stark manages to create the ultimate bulletproof suit of power armor, complete with pacemaker and flamethrowers and releases himself from his captor but Yinsen dies in the process while trying to help Stark to buy time.

However, since the Iron Man suit is the first creation, it fails after flying in midair and crashed onto a desert with the Iron Man suit fall apart into a thousand pieces only to have Lt. Colonel James Rhodes (Terrence Howard) to rescue Stark.

Now back at the States, his partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) and especially his personal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) is extremely happy to see him alive and kicking. When Potts insists to bring Stark to the hospital for checkup, all Stark wants is a Burger King’s Cheeseburger and to call for an immediate press conference. In the press conference, Stark requests all the reporters to sit down while he eats his cheeseburger. He immediately announces the shut down of Stark Industries weapon manufacturing to which his partner, Stane strongly disapproves.

Back at home, Stark builds a more advanced heart for himself and gets Potts to replace his "old" heart which he tells Potts to throw and burn it. Stark improves his armor and becomes the technologically advanced superhero Iron Man. After numerous testings, his advanced armor suit ends up in gold with red paint. Almost immediately, Stark puts in his latest Iron Man suit, flies to Gulmira, Afghanistan and kills the terrorists who at that point of time are kidnapping women and children and killing men.

The improved Iron Man in gold and red

Meanwhile, the Ten Rings terrorists manage to find pieces of armor left by Stark. The leader of Ten Rings, Raza (Faran Tahir) is seen meeting Stane in discussion of the remained of the armor suits found in the desert. Despite being the man who sells weapons to Ten Rings, Stane orders his men to finish off the remainders of the terrorists and left the place with the armor suit.

Back in United States, Stane gathers a group of scientists to build a more advanced Iron Man called Iron Monger. The only thing missing is the way too technological-advanced heart that Stark has built for himself. So, Stane uses a disapproved highly-advanced sound wave weapon to temporarily immobilize Stark in order to grab his heart.

Stark is lucky as his assistant, Potts has kept his "old" heart in a properly framed glass which simply says “Stark has a heart”. He struggles to reach the framed glass but his robotic assistant lends him a hand.

The fight between Iron Man and Iron Monger then pursues but not for long before the film ends with Tony Stark at a press conference revealing himself as the Iron Man.

Overall, the movie is awesome and is possibly the best-ever film adapted from a comic book. Funny, smart and properly plotted, this is probably the best movie so far for the 2008 movies.

My ratings: 8 out of 10.

P/S: Do look out for Stan Lee’s cameo appearance in the movie.