Favreau admitted that it was merely a rushed release schedule that did him in. He noted:
“A lot of things have to come together for this movie to work out. […] We’re up against it, schedule-wise. We’ve given ourselves less time on this film than we did last time, and it’s a much more ambitious project. This is part of the fear that I had when we started so late; less than two years to do this, to come up with this story. Set it up, prep it, film it, cut it, and do all the finishing touches. It’s no excuse — we’re going to have to do a great film — but it does put everybody under a tremendous amount of stress.”
He noted that he — along with the editors, composers, and everyone else — was going to have to work long, long, long days to get everything done. “It was ambitious to begin with,” he said, “and now we have to knock it into overdrive. There’s going to be a lot of people not sleeping. Hundreds of people not sleeping.”
Despite the rush, Favreau completed “Iron Man 2” on time. The film ultimately cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 million, compared to the $140 million of the first “Iron Man.” Perhaps exasperating, the second film wasn’t a much larger hit than the first (“Iron Man” made $585 million worldwide, while “Iron Man 2” made $623 million). Additionally, reviews were mixed. Many can say now that “Iron Man 2” was far more concerned with the new machinations of the upcoming MCU than it was with telling an interesting story unto itself; the script was sloppy.
“Iron Man 3” was announced as early as 2010, and Favreau had no interest in returning.
