Why Iron Man 3 Is A Christmas Movie, As Told By Director Shane Black

The Marvel Cinematic Universe films rarely take their time off from fulfilling the timeline that connects one film to the next, but it’s relieving to see the current MCU phase end on a more lighthearted note with the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. If you think about it, there are other potential Christmas holiday-themed MCU movies, and one of them happens to be Iron Man 3, as told by director Shane Black.

Recently speaking with Empire, Shane Black details in that the Christmas setting in Iron Man 3 had not been part of his initial idea. In fact, the holiday theme was drawn by Drew Pearce, to which Black agreed with upon making the film. Check out Black’s full story below:

“I didn’t want Christmas to feel like a gimmick, or something that was predictable, or ostentatious on my part.” The director reiterates that having a Christmas theme is not as fun as it sounds, noting that Tony Stark’s arc here is kinda close to the Christmas Carol’s plot, “It started out as fun, and as soon as people noticed it, it stopped being fun. But I acquiesced largely because of the Christmas Carol aspect of it. Tony loses his support, loses his base, he’s adrift in Mid-America.”

To recap, Iron Man 3 is the aftermath of what Tony Stark had to go through in The Avengers. After the alien invasion in New York, Stark was found having severe PTSD through panic attacks and waking up in cold sweat, which led him to build more Iron Man suits than he needed, as a way of wanting to keep this anxiety still within his control. The Christmas film explored Tony Stark beyond his suit, which offered a more vulnerable side of Iron Man.

Black continues on to say that Tony Stark’s ghosts is not in the traditional form, but rather, as the director describes it, “in the middle of a reckoning, or a reconciliation, where he has to take stock, figure out what’s troubling him, and how he’s going to continue.”

You can add Iron Man 3 to your holiday watch list as it is now streaming on Disney+.

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