Hot off his career-reviving role in director Darren Aronofsky’s award-winning film The Wrestler, Mickey Rourke may end up putting the smackdown on a popular Marvel superhero. Daily Variety reports that the Sin City actor is in talks to face off against Robert Downey Jr. as the main baddie in Iron Man 2, which Paramount Pictures plans to release in the summer of 2010.
Rourke would play the Crimson Dynamo, a tattooed Russian arms dealer who fights Iron Man in his own nuclear-powered suit of armor. Sam Rockwell (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe) is also negotiating a villainous role in the pic, which director Jon Favreau plans to begin shooting this spring from a script by actor/writer Justin Theroux (Tropic Thunder).
After bursting onto the scene in the 1980s with such films as Body Heat, Diner, Rumble Fish and 9 ‘ Weeks, Rourke virtually fell off the map of Hollywood stars, appearing mostly in low-budget productions while pursuing a professional boxing career. Director Robert Rodriguez brought him back into the limelight with Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Sin City, in which he won over audiences as Marv, Frank Miller’s vengeful brute with a heart of gold. He also appeared in the Tony Scott films Man on Fire and Domino. On Sunday, Rourke will be sweating it out with the other nominees for Best Actor at the Golden Globe Awards.
