Mandarin in Iron Man 3 ?

Somebody’s thinking ahead. Iron Man 2 isn’t even here yet, but already there is some speculation about Iron Man 3. The rumor has started that Shell Head’s arch foe, the Mandarin, will make his entrance in the next Iron Man movie.

Faran Tahir, who played Raza, the leader of the Ten Rings, the terrorist organisation that captured Tony Stark in the first Iron Man movie, has been speaking about his character becoming the moustached-super genius. ”At some point, they want to introduce Mandarin into the storyline and my character, like Mandarin, was the leader of the Ten Rings,” said Tahir. “We’re leaving it open because, partly, it makes good business sense for us to leave a little bit of uncertainty for people to speculate on.”

He continued, “He [Favreau] has known for a long time where he wants to take it and I don’t want to speak for him, but my feeling is that the second movie didn’t want to just follow a singular storyline. They wanted to expand the characters to show that it’s not a linear saga like Lord of the Rings. There’s a linkage somewhere in there, but the big idea is to do at least one more Iron Man movie and then go into The Avengers.”

Discuss it in the forums.