With Iron Man hitting screens this weekend, fanboys will be out in force and they'll want to know whether Terrence Howard’s character James Rhodes could turn into his War Machine alter-ego in future sequels. That's right, in the comics, Howard's character eventually gets his own Iron Man-like suit of armor.
Howard spoke to Comingsoon.net about any potential for War Machine action from his character in subsequent movies and says, "He has to be willing to take off his suit as a lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force first, and that is a hard thing to let go of. Tony has already let go of his billionaire suit that he wore, and you gotta get naked to get into that suit, and Rhodey has to get naked first."
It seems Howard is in no rush to don the armor for the sake of it and would rather see the character evolve naturally over time in to the role: "Rhodey's killed a thousand people with his planes, dropped bombs, and bears no responsibility for it, but when that comes to face him, once Rhodey puts on that helmet that Tony has geared towards his [own] patterns and picks up on some of those things that Tony's responsibility and what he's done. The computer in that helmet records the brain waves, and begins to jar Rhodey and the changes begin to happen in him. He'll be a little more human."
He does stress however that he doesn’t know whether he’ll ultimately become War Machine in the second or third movie, joking that he’d rather see it be the third if for no other reason to ensure three paychecks instead of two. He even goes so far as to drop hints of a spin-off franchise of his own.
Director Jon Favreau also hinted that he’s keen to see War Machine on film, saying: "I think you gotta go with War Machine, you gotta give Terrence more to do. I think he could go toe-to-toe with Robert, and it could be a cool buddy set-up. Then you need some bad guys."
So there you go fanboys, you got your answer. Lets just hope now that Iron Man becomes the next Spider-Man franchise and becomes big enough to sustain the interest necessary to get this story out there. Make sure you head over to CS and read the rest of their interview.
