Between his standout starring role in the B-movie Lockout and his upcoming part in the ensemble of Ridley Scott's Prometheus, Guy Pearce is having a great year in the spotlight. Now he seems to be making sure that winning streak continues into 2013. Variety reports that Pearce is close to signing on to Iron Man 3, the superhero sequel in which he'd play the geneticist Aldrich Killian, who in the comics at least was responsible for inventing the Extremis serum, which both terrorists and Iron Man used to make themselves more powerful.
We already knew that Iron Man 3 would draw from the "Extremis" arc from the comics, and that Ben Kingsley's villain character will be responsible for spreading a virus through the use of nanobots. The Variety report doesn't exactly name Pearce as a villain, but presumably he'll be on Tony Stark's bad side once his invention starts being used for evil, though if Iron Man also gets to benefit from Extremis he might be an important ally. I imagine Marvel will shy away from calling Killian a "villain" either way just to avoid comparisons to the bad-guy-stuffed Iron Man 2, which had so many foes for Tony Stark to face that I tend to forget Sam Rockwell was even in the damn thing.
Production on Iron Man 3 begins very soon in and around Wilmington, North Carolina, all rushing so that it can make its May 3, 2013 release date. With Shane Black on board as writer-director but Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle and Scarlett Johansson all returning, the third film seems to have a good mix of old and new that might help us move on from the disappointing second film. And at this point, Guy Pearce is on such a hot streak that his addition to the cast is an automatic plus.
