Iron Man 2: The Abridged Script
By Rod | Jun 1st, 2010 |
24 Comments
| Movie: 
Superheroism is nice, but Tony Stark's real dream has always been a Tiger Beat cover.
FADE IN:
EXT. DOWNEY JR. EXPO – FLUSHING, NY
ROBERT DOWNEY JR. jumps out of an airplane without talking to GWYNETH PALTROW, deleting everyone’s favorite scene from the trailer. He lands on stage at his company’s exhibition.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
(cocky)
Good evening, film extras! As you know, this is where I show off cool new technology from my company as well as establish the fact that my entire character arc from the last film has been rewound back to when I started as an arrogant, selfish ass!
GWYNETH PALTROW
Robert, in between my incessant nagging I need to tell you that you’ve been subpoenaed to appear on the Larry Sanders show.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
I respond with confident sarcasm. I’ll fly to Washington just after a superfluous cameo by Larry Ellison.
LARRY ELLISON
That’s right assholes, I plastered my bullshit all over the Java API and now I’m in your comic book movies too! BOW BEFORE THE ALL-POWERFUL ORACLE!
INT. SENATE HEARING – WASHINGTON, D.C.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR. behaves like a child in front of a bunch of SENATORS.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
After the success of the first film’s scenes of press conferences and financial analysis programs, I’m glad to see we upped the ante with corporate exhibitions and senate hearings.
GARRY SHANDLING
Robert, the United States government cannot allow a single person to possess a weapon of mass destruction! Turn the weapon over to us so that we can use it to totally not torture suspected terrorists!
GWYNETH PALTROW
I’m confused, are we rooting for the suit to be in the hands of the military-industrial complex or the unstable douchebag billionaire alcoholic?
Suddenly, DON CHEADLE and SAM ROCKWELL enter.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
Oh look, my friend Don Cheadle that I’ve been friends with for years and is in no way a replacement for another actor! And Sam Rockwell, who seems to be taking his character’s name “Hammer” extremely literally.
SAM ROCKWELL
Hey everyone, I’m a total jerkhole like Robert, but I didn’t build a giant robot suit so that makes me suck balls. Excuse me while I push my glasses up, snort.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
Look, the fact of the matter is that I’m totally super cool, illustrated by me using my iPhone to hack into a television that nobody can seem to turn off. Thus, I should get to keep the suit. Bye.
EXT. GRAND PRIX – MONACO
ROBERT goes to the GRAND PRIX. Characters all talk over each other, which passes for CLEVER DIALOGUE. ROBERT hops into a RACECAR and drives around but suddenly MICKEY ROURKE shows up with LIGHTSABER WHIPS and slices a bunch of cars in half.
MICKEY ROURKE
I am here to be adversary, Robert! I am serious Oscar-vinning actor now, so I actually vent to Russian prison to research role!
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
Where you discovered Russian prisoners have Russian accents and tattoos. Now that’s living the craft.
JON FAVREAU and GWYNETH PALTROW show up and ram MICKEY into a wall with their car. They throw ROBERT an IRON MAN SUITCASE which allows ROBERT to sell a slightly different ACTION FIGURE.
GWYNETH PALTROW
How the hell does that thing not weigh like a billion pounds?
JON FAVREAU
Oh no, Mickey Rourke has survived being slammed into a wall with a car! Four times! Geeze, what moron directed this?
IRON ROBERT and MICKEY ROURKE fight for a bit.
MICKEY ROURKE
Vodka communism ice hockey! How do vhips slice right through cars but just mildly annoy iron suit?
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
That’s almost as good a question as why your face doesn’t completely explode when I punch you in it with my big iron man fist.
(punch)
MICKEY is beaten and taken to JAIL, but he escapes and meets with SAM ROCKWELL.
SAM ROCKWELL
Hi Mickey, I like the way that you dislike Robert, so I think we could work together even though doing so makes me a full-fledged criminal.
MICKEY ROURKE
I can help you. As you can see, I’m very muscular.
SAM ROCKWELL
Yeah, I can see that, so we…
MICKEY ROURKE
And a physicist.
SAM ROCKWELL
Ha ha, well that’s pretty unbeliev–
MICKEY ROURKE
And a computer hacker.
SAM ROCKWELL
Dude, what?
SAM allows insane, vengeful MICKEY ROURKE to completely take over the design and control of his ARMY OF KILLER ROBOTS.
SAM ROCKWELL
I don’t see how this could possibly go wrong.
Meanwhile…
INT. ROBERT DOWNEY JR’S MANSION
ROBERT DOWNEY JR is boxing with JON FAVREAU. SCARLETT JOHANSSON enters.
GWYNETH PALTROW
Robert, since you made me CEO of your company, I need you to sign some paperwork. Scarlett Johansson is here from the legal department. Also, she has boobs, now presented in IMAX.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
We should pull up some pictures from her stint as a lingerie model. This is pathetic pandering, but the drooling nerds in the audience won’t notice.
SCARLETT briefly boxes with JON FAVREAU and KICKS HIS ASS SUPER-SEXYLIKE!
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
Holy shit, nice moves! It’s almost like you’re a secret undercover agent, but if that were true it would be fucking idiotic of you to blow your cover just to avoid getting your pride hurt by my limo driver, so I guess not!
SCARLETT JOHNANSSON
Listen, I have to be in a YouTube commenter’s masturbation fantasy in about 5 minutes so if we could hurry this along…
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
Fair enough. Hypothetically speaking, if it was your birthday and you were wearing a metal robot suit that was slowly poisioning you, what would you do?
SCARLETT JOHNANSSEN
I suppose I’d do whatever I wanted. Like maybe getting piss-drunk while wearing the most dangerous weapon in the world and still managing to be likeable somehow.
He DOES.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
Welcome to the most terrifying birthday party ever imagined, everyone! Now I’m going to blow up some big glass bottles, showering all of you with deadly broken glass!
ASPIRING ACTRESSES
WOO, SPRING BREAK!
DON CHEADLE shows up. Seeing ROBERT drunk, he goes downstairs and becomes LESS COLORFUL IRON MAN.
DON CHEADLE
That’s enough, Robert! I’ve somehow already figured out how to work the suit, so I’m ready to fight you, even if our fight would have special effects astonishingly inferior to the first film’s!
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
How the hell do you plan on getting out of that thing? I have a bunch of giant robot arms help me.
DON and ROBERT, wearing suits that make them invincible, FIGHT. Eventually DON leaves and gets SAM ROCKWELL to attach a bunch of EXTRA PHALLIC SYMBOLS to his BIG METAL DICK.
SAMUEL L. MOTHERFUCKING JACKSON approaches ROBERT.
SAMUEL L. MOTHERFUCKING JACKSON
Nice to see you again, Robert. This time I’m an essential character and a major part of what is barely passing for a storyline.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
What about the people who didn’t stay past the credits for the last movie? For them, this is just suddenly introducing a black pirate out of nowhere.
SAMUEL L. MOTHERFUCKING JACKSON
Then I’ll point you in the direction of the film’s climax and leave. You see, Mickey Rourke hates you because his dad used to work with your dad. But while your dad had noble goals of progress, Rourke’s dad wanted to make a profit.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
Well progress is nice, but it’s hard to fault an inventor for wanting to make money off his work.
SAMUEL L. MOTHERFUCKING JACKSON
So naturally your dad fired the guy, used their invention to become a multi-millionaire himself, and had him deported back to Russia where he died in poverty. Now his son wants revenge.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
I see. And we’re sure he’s the bad guy and not me, right?
SAMUEL L. MOTHERFUCKING JACKSON
Of course. He has a Russian accent, whereas you make sarcastic quips. In any case, I know your suit is killing you. Your dad hid a secret message inside of a train model that could help. Your dad hated safe deposit boxes. Called them “devil Jew boxes.” Maybe I should stop telling you stuff about your dad.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
Thanks, I’ll go get that model from Gwyneth Paltrow’s office after talking to her in front of an executive desk toy that generates continuity errors.
SAMUEL L. MOTHERFUCKING JACKSON
Good luck. And remember, I’ve got my eye on you.
(pause)
Eh? Eh?
(pause)
Because of the eyepatch.
ROBERT retreats to his GENIUS BASEMENT to invent his way out of the movie’s central problem.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
Alright, I’m going to just move my arms randomly while walking around this room and you guys can animate a whole bunch of crap happening as if I was making it do that.
(wild gesticulation)
Eureka! My dad discovered an element with more electrons than other elements, which means it’s a new element! That’s how chemistry works, and now that I’m aware of it I can start using it right away!
EXT. ROCKWELL EXPO – FLUSHING, NY
SAM ROCKWELL shows off his ROBOT ARMY and DON CHEADLE.
SAM ROCKWELL
Now for sale, robots for the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines! And each one is painted to resemble their respective military branches, isn’t that adorable?
DON CHEADLE
Hey, I don’t have control of my suit! Mickey Rourke has hacked into my mainframe router traceroute algorithm IP address visual basic!
The DEADLY, WEAPONIZED ROBOTS go HAYWIRE.
SAM ROCKWELL
Fuck, why the hell did I give them live ammunition for a trade show?
ROBERT DOWNEY JR. shows up and FIGHTS SOME ROBOTS.
Meanwhile, SCARLETT JOHNANSSON hurries to save the city from MICKEY ROURKE but first takes some time to change into a SEXY BLACK CATSUIT.
SCARLETT JOHANSSON (O.C.)
Robert, I tracked down the computer Mickey was using to control his robot army. He’s gone.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
I suppose that without an operator, these robots will have to stop fighting me, right?
SCARLETT JOHANSSON (O.C.)
Somehow, nope! Good luck, Robert, I need to go fight a bunch of guys while being painfully self-aware of the fact that I’m in a comic book movie. I’ll do a sexy pose after every punch, which would be embarrassing if not for the fact that the internet loves me and forgives even my worst performances.
DON CHEADLE
I have control of my suit now, Robert! Let’s take these robots out while utterly failing to give the audience even the slightest sense that we are in danger!
They fight ROBOTS together, discussing strategy and engaging in CAMARADERIE.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
Oh wait, let me just use this thing that instantly kills all of the bad guys.
(wins)
MICKEY ROURKE shows up in ANOTHER IRON MAN SUIT.
MICKEY ROURKE
Snow potatoes Red Square fur coats! I must break you, Robert!
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
What a surprise, the bad guy has decided to confront me while wearing a giant robot suit. If there’s one thing the audience is hungry for after two movies, it’s more scenes of me fighting an endless stream of metal guys.
DON shoots a SUPER SPECIAL BULLET at MICKEY, which FAILS.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
Sam Rockwell Tech, eh?
DON CHEADLE
Yeah, it was. And so are the fifty guns I’ve got attached to my suit that are working fine and helped us fight an army of robots ten seconds ago. Pompous ass.
ROBERT and DON shoot ROURKE and he EXPLODES.
MICKEY ROURKE
Beets Rubles ushankas KGB! You vill pay for this, Robert!
(dies)
DON CHEADLE
Jesus, Iron Man villains suck so bad. Why can’t we just bite the bullet and introduce Mandarin?
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
The guy with the magical rings? No way, Jon Favreau wants to keep these movies grounded in reality.
DON CHEADLE
The same Jon Favreau whose movie features a scene after the credits in which an eyepatch-wearing superspy in charge of a secret government organization of superheroes discovers the magical hammer of the thunder god of Norse mythology, right?
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
Dude. Spoiler alert.
DON CHEADLE
Sorry. Spoilers, everyone: Thor sucks.
END
Whoa, did they seriously want "to keep these movies grounded in reality?" I had been figuring I was being too hard on the movie, given that it had apparently been written by an eight-year-old, for an audience of eight-year-olds (it is a comic book movie, after all), but… perhaps not?
June 1st, 2010 at 1:50 pmHey, I don’t have control of my suit! Mickey Rourke has hacked into my mainframe router traceroute algorithm IP address visual basic!
pfffffffft hahahahahaha
June 1st, 2010 at 7:07 amI can't really say anything past "it's perfect". Because it is. As usual.
June 1st, 2010 at 3:26 pmWhile I enjoyed the movie, I also was painfully aware of just how ridiculous the entire thing was and also that it really wasn’t as good as the original. So despite that, I loved, as usual, this script. Everything mentioned here are the exact things I was thinking during the movie. Well done Rod!
June 1st, 2010 at 9:44 pmExcellent. Thanks, Rod.
I’ve missed SAMUEL L. MOTHERFUCKING JACKSON.
June 2nd, 2010 at 10:29 amThis is one of Rod’s best scripts ever! :-)
June 3rd, 2010 at 2:35 amAhhh nothing like a boring, scattershot action flick that is painfully dependent upon a novelty film that doesn't exist yet.
June 4th, 2010 at 10:50 pmI'm determined to like this movie when I see it–however, this abridged script is brilliantly funny and I love it. If I had a billion dollars and a mind-control-device, I would hire a film crew, abduct all the actors, and have them act out this parody you wrote. And I would watch that movie over and over, and laaaugh…!
June 5th, 2010 at 12:56 pmGood job! No, wonderful job.
what about the mail-order particle accelerator??? and how it magically turns into a laser beam?!?!?
oh well, loved the movie, but this script is funny as hell
June 6th, 2010 at 12:32 pmKreml matryoshka Polar bears!
June 6th, 2010 at 1:11 pm"Good luck, Robert, I need to go fight a bunch of guys while being painfully self-aware of the fact that I’m a comic book movie."
June 7th, 2010 at 7:53 amDid you mean "I'm IN a comic book movie," or "I'm DOING a comic book movie?"
Or is the way it's shown how it's supposed to be read? Meaning that Scarlet Johansson is the only reason people went to watch the movie?
It's not important, but when people mention typos, you fix them, so I thought I'd mention it ^-^
Awesome script. I haven't seen the movie, and I think I'll wait to rent it.
you should’nt have missed that particle accelerator bit …. I was hopin you’d shred that scene apart in your script :-)
June 7th, 2010 at 2:21 pmThe mandarin was already in the first Iron man. He was the guy keeping Tony in the cave. The name of his organization was "Ten Rings". Clever, isn't it?
June 13th, 2010 at 8:35 pmI enjoyed the heck out of the movie, but the thing that bothered me the very most was… how did Don Cheadle power his war machine suit? The arc reactor in Iron Man's chest that the Russian badguy somehow copied was pretty central to the story, but apparently unnecessary since War Machine doesn't need one.
On the other hand, Scarlett Johansson was awesome and I forgive the movie for all of the silly audience-pandering related to her because I enjoyed it too much.
June 14th, 2010 at 10:08 amAwesome as usual. While I did think the film was weak it was a lot of fun, yet it still had a lot of flaws and most of them were brought up. I know you only do movie scripts Rod, but could you please write one for the Lost finale?
June 16th, 2010 at 9:29 pmPushkin Cossack Dacha Leninism!
June 18th, 2010 at 7:25 ami thought this film was equal to the first one, just that people were expecting more from this one. hearing that an iron man movie starring robert downey jr. probably didn't turn too many heads, but it turned out to be one of the best superhero films ever. now they were expecting so much from a sequel that it was much harder to live up to expectations. the first was less rushed and had a more thought out story, but they are almost equal in entertainment. still, good script. again.
June 19th, 2010 at 5:07 pmAwesome parody script, dude. Like many comments before me, my favorite bits had to be Mickey Rourke's dialogue. I'm kinda bummed you ignored the obvious Pulp Fiction reference they had in the doughnut shop (that apparently doubles as a photo studio).
June 24th, 2010 at 1:17 amBut other than that, this was highly entertaining.
Thank God someone thought this movie was as crappy as I did. I loved the first Iron Man but this one just blew. The arguing between Gwenyth and RDJr that was slight comic relief in the first film just went WAY overboard in this one. Too much dual dialogue, no cohesive story to speak of, hope the next one is better.
July 5th, 2010 at 8:15 pm"I’ll do a sexy pose after every punch, which would be embarrassing if not for the fact that the internet loves me and forgives even my worst performances."
Thank you so much for mentioning this! I thought there was something wrong with the movie, she pauses so many times!
July 16th, 2010 at 1:08 am"ROBERT DOWNEY JR. jumps out of an airplane without talking to GWYNETH PALTROW, deleting everyone’s favorite scene from the trailer."
Damn it, you're so right.
July 17th, 2010 at 10:21 pmNah. The first one, while fantastical, had a much tighter script and screenplay. You could actually care about the protagonists in the original. The second, while entertaining, wasn't nearly as good.
July 27th, 2010 at 3:48 pmAlso, were there no security guards at the race who actually had guns? Come on, one shot from a Glock and Crazy Russian Stereotype Man is history.
July 27th, 2010 at 3:51 pmGreat article. The thing that bothered me most was the fight scene between Scarlett Johnansson and HammerTech. Why the hell did it happen? Hammer was cooperating at that point. Did it slip everyone’s mind that he could just call ahead, tell the guards to let Scarlett Johnansson to capture the criminal who’s been murdering them, and avert several minutes of bad wire-frame fighting?
August 20th, 2010 at 12:18 am