Having already grossed about 200 million bucks worldwide this weekend, it?s pretty safe to say that Iron Man is a monster hit, and its director, Jon Favreau, is on fire. We chatted with Favreau last weekend at the Iron Man junket in New York City, and we made sure to ask him what new scenes will surface on the Iron Man DVD and which comic-book characters will appear in the inevitable sequel?

[Note: After reading this interview be sure to check out our conversation with Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr., and our exclusive video interviews with Favreau, Downey and the rest of the cast!]

What didn?t make it into the theatrical cut that we can expect on the DVD?

Uh, what do you want me to say? You want me to say Hillary Swank? You want me to say Nick Fury? Is that what you?re reaching for? There?s gonna be a sequence between when Robert takes off to go to fight back in Afghanistan, where there?s a whole party sequence in Dubai that we had filmed, that just felt like it slowed the momentum down. There?s a cameo from Ghostface Killer that was there, where him and Tony Stark knew each other.

The Nick Fury/Samuel Jackson sequence has made it into the theatrical cut.

Interesting, I love the echo chamber of the internet because that?s where things become reality and, let?s put it this way?I think that the challenge has been first people getting to know who Iron Man was, and I think that the online fans and online community did a tremendous service to the film and me by bringing it to everyone?s attention. Because this is the big water cooler, and when they saw the footage at Comic Con and saw the online leaks, even ones that we sent out with releases or ones that found their way through spies, people started to get on it, anticipate it and the word started to spread. It worked its way to the mainstream, and now everyone wants to see this movie. The problem is for two years we?ve been in dialogue and there weren?t a lot of surprises left. So I guess my job is to try to figure out how to make it feel like people who have been waiting for this movie and watching all the stuff online, all the hours of material on there, for it to still be a fresh experience. My job is to still entertain the people who have been following along with everything?and when something doesn?t seem like a surprise, and everyone expects it, it sort of makes it not fun. So I just want to try to still remember the fans that have been watching diligently and have enough there that makes it exciting as well.

You guys have been filling in the blanks for the last two years as much as anyone. I don?t expect it to stop now. I?ve never lied to any of the fans and I just try to be ambiguous if I don?t want, if they prefer that I just don?t answer the questions.

Did you think about what you needed to add to make both the new fans and old fans enjoy it?

Yeah, I think the fans of the comic books, from the studio standpoint, if this were a big studio movie would be completely irrelevant. I mean time and time again it?s been proven that the studios care about making money, it?s their job. They want to take the source material and make it appealing to as broad an audience as possible while costing the least to make and making the most profits. When Marvel sets out to make a movie their priorities are a little bit different. They?re servicing a fan base, they?re protecting the source material. They are the keepers of this pantheon of characters that have made the corporation profitable over the last forty years. They?ve built into this a merchandising empire, and they don?t want to?I think there?s an added responsibility they have and when they hire me I definitely feel, as a fan, the responsibility to stay true to the expectations of the fans and that doesn?t mean always doing exactly what?s in the source material, but it means considering it and making decisions not because you arbitrarily want to change something but because you think it serves the material the best. So there was that responsibility, but no one knew who Iron Man was outside the core fans, so we had to educate everybody out there as to who Iron Man is and what he could do. Although I think you can?t ignore the fan base, your fan base is not the people that are going to dictate the success of your movie financially. So you have to make a movie that?s accessible to people who don?t know anything about Iron Man and that?s the fine line I had to walk?it was to put enough Easter eggs in the movie for the fans, stay true in the casting and the way I use visual effects, and tell the story, and choose the heroes and villains, and the technology, but also make it so that somebody could just plunk down their ten bucks and go for a ride and take their mind off the election for two hours.

What made you think of Robert Downey Jr.?

When I was sitting across from Robert, that?s when the light bulb went off over my head and I realized this is the guy that could bring me home, this is the number one draft pick that?s going to take me to the Superbowl. I got how to make the movie. We were not going to just be a poor man?s Spider-Man if I could get this guy. The problem of course was he was far too interesting of a choice for the studio. There was a resounding ?No? when I presented him and they were people who were fans of his and said ?Look, it?s clearly the best choice creatively, but it?s the first movie, it?s too much money. No one knows Iron Man, so now you?re going to be defining Iron Man by Robert?? Because Robert?s far more?you know people know Robert more than they know Iron Man. That was not the case, you know? That wasn?t the case with the Hulk and Eric Bana, or with Spider-Man and Tobey, or with Batman and Christian Bale. So I understood their misgivings, you know? I mean, he?s ten years older than they would have liked me to hire somebody if they?re starting a franchise too. If this movie does well they?re going to make a lot of then, it?s many years and he?s already in his forties. Now, as we went round and round we realized that this guy brings dimension, this is like Johnny Depp doing Pirates. People are ready for this guy to play this role. It?s not him starring in Elf, man, that?s Tony Stark! That?s Tony Stark, man! People want Tony Stark to be Tony Stark?that?s why people make rap songs about him. He captures the story of that bad-boy attitude and makes this movie not be Batman. This is a forty-year-old rip-off of Batman. When Iron Man was first invented they were copying each other, DC and Marvel, and Batman came first. Now we have an incredibly compelling franchise, and if Dark Knight is half as good as it looks online the thing?s going to be a monster. I can?t be making Batman, I?ve got to do my own thing. I gotta play up the subversive attitude that Marvel had when it established itself as a reaction to DC. You had Superman, who could do no wrong, living in Metropolis, Gotham City is this fantasy land, and then you had Stan Lee bring his personality to Marvel. It was subversive. It wasn?t epic. They were living in New York, they were having trouble paying the rent, they were getting in trouble, they were running into each other in the neighborhood. They had problems, they had flaws. And it was that subversive humor that defined Marvel, not an epic quality. So we had to find the attitude, and that?s why we paid through the nose for heavy-metal music that you?d never see in another superhero movie. That?s why we opened with ?Back in Black?, that?s why we had Robert Downey Jr.?this had to be attitude and be rock-and-roll and be in your face. That?s why it?s on the West Coast, and why it?s Howard Hughes and the history of flight and The Right Stuff. I wanted a different imagery, because you change the attitude and you?re doing Dark Knight?that?s the brooding gothic version of the billionaire industrialist, you know? Bruce Wayne when he gets depressed, he listens to his music on his headphones, he locks himself up in his study. Tony Stark, when he gets depressed, he gets bombed and wraps his car around a telephone pole. You know? It?s a different kind of movie, and so we wanted to play up those differences so that we didn?t compete with that movie that I know is going to be great. Thankfully we?re a month apart and we?re not competing directly.

Robert Downey Jr. is intriguing?even when the movie starts slow, you?re intrigued by watching him.

Yeah, it gave us a lot of latitude to be patient with how we did the origin story. That?s the Faustian deal with the first movie. You gotta show the origin story, so every first movie is, you know, the origin, and then what happens to the water system in Gotham City. You?re always gonna have that Frankenstein feel of being two movies.

Why did you decide to insert yourself into your film?

As an actor, the reason I?m in there is probably me being selfish and wanting to be an actor in it, and knowing that Happy Hogan has more to do later, that I get to have a few scenes with Gwyneth later. Although she doesn?t know it yet.

She says she wants to make out with you!

Oh yeah!? I?m definitely up for a sequel! Even if I?m not directing, I?m there. Because I?m in love with her, and I just fell in love with those heels walking around the set. Just everybody?the set would get quiet.

But Happy Hogan was also a nod to the audience. That?s not just an extra driving a car, that?s Happy Hogan. If you read the books he?s gonna be in there, we don?t have room for him much, but he?s in there. I?m considering you guys. Then, the reason for the male-female thing, that?s my wheelhouse. That?s what I?m most comfortable with. I love those meet-cute scenes, I love romantic comedy. You look at Swingers?I could write that dialogue for days. And to have Gweneth and him?there was a real affection between them, and a lot of that was two camera set-ups. Or me writing a scene the night before and bringing it in, or us trying three different versions of a scene before the press conference. I love those scenes, and my love, my personality, gets fused into the movie because of the spontaneous nature of the movie. If I dig it, I think it comes across.

Can you say which villains we might be looking at in the second and third films?

I think Mandarin for sure. I think War Machine for sure.

In the second one? Mandarin and War Machine?

I think War Machine. I think you gotta give Terrence more to do. You know, he really had to be patient with this one. I mean, he could have been Tony Stark, if we really wanted to go against the grain of what was in the books. He characterizes that. And once you break him out of the role that was relegated to him in this one, I think he could go toe-to-toe with Robert, and it could really be a cool buddy set-up, and then you need some big bad guys. I think the bad guys are going to be tech-based for the most part. Seeing what?s worked about this film.

Why did you choose to go with Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger with this movie?

It worked well, and we wanted a big suit. We wanted Jeff Bridges, and he was up for it. In casting Jeff Bridges that role really grew. As we went away from the Mandarin, and he seemed really too ambitious to do in the first one, Obadiah just seemed like the right guy to do. And it just worked well with the suit.