Iron Man 2 Writer Talks Howard-Ouster

Goodbye, Mr. Howard…for some reason…

MTV’s Splash Page has an interview with Justin Theroux, slated to be the writer for the next Iron Man film. Theroux, best known as an actor, also wrote Tropic Thunder.

Theroux took the opportunity of the Splash platform to refute the rumor started in Entertainment Weekly that Terrence Howard was booted from the cast because Theroux and director Jon Favreau were cutting the size of the role drastically because a) Howard was being paid way much more than the rest of the cast and b) he was a problem on the set. That was EW’s take on why they wanted to minimize the character in the next film.  

Theroux disagrees, of course. Here’s his take:

“I can’t really speak to the plot stuff and all the rest of it but Rhodes is completely present in a very strong and big way. He’s COMPLETELY present….All that stuff that was in the ‘EW’ article…I don’t know. I can only tell you what I know which is that from a writing standpoint we didn’t do anything differently [with the character]. It’s not like we were sitting there going, we need less of this or that. We just approached the characters and the story on their own terms.”

In other words, hey, he’s just writing and he doesn’t bear a grudge towards Howard. I don’t think Theroux has any real meaning outside of what he wants to do with the story. And of course the writer will always be on the bottom of the studio list of who to check with about talent for a role.

So will we ever really find out what happened with Howard? On the studio side, you get all the problem child Howard stories. But according to Howard, it was a great experience and he didn’t do anything wrong. So all we can do is wait and hope for the real story, which will come out someday. Hollywood’s not a good place for secrets.