Iron Man 3 May Be Adding Ashley Hamilton As Firepower

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Just a few minutes ago, while writing up an article about how Casino Royale's Mads Mikkelsen could play the villain in Thor 2, I noted that Iron Man 3 has been hogging all of the news coming out of Marvel. So of course now that the big Thor news is out there we have yet another casting story for the Iron Man sequel- and it's a weird one.

Variety is reporting that actor Ashley Hamilton is now in talks to play the villain known as Firepower in Iron Man 3. The character in the comics is a corporate rival of Tony Stark's who builds an armored suit for the government (under Project: Firepower) and then uses it to battle the titular hero. Hamilton is the son of George Hamilton and was a performer in the 2009 season of Dancing With The Stars. The third movie in the Iron Man series will bring back Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle and Paul Bettany and is said to be based on the Extremis comic book arc where the hero must battle the spread of a stolen nanovirus. Shane Black is directing the film and co-wrote the script with Drew Pearce.

I must say that this is really disappointing news. For a minute it looked like they were trying to move away from the guy in metal suit vs. guy in metal suit, but this sounds like more of the same. What's the difference between this character and Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) from the second movie? Hopefully Firepower is just some quick thing in the beginning and doesn't have much impact on the actual story.

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Eric Eisenberg
Eric Eisenberg
Assistant Managing Editor

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.