Not too long ago, the narrative behind the creation of Iron Man 3 started to take an interesting post-release turn. Writer / director Shane Black went on record as stating tha a female villain was to be had in the inclusion of Rebecca Hall's Maya Hansen into the narrative fold, but an official decision from Marvel Studios' top brass put the kibosh on such a happening. The main reasoning, at least according to Black's side of the story, was that toy sales were at stake in the eyes of the studio. While we can't confirm the rational involving toy sales, we can now confirm that this going concern was grist for the mill that greatly reduced Hall's participation in the Marvel sequel.
During an interview reported by The Toronto Sun, Hall spoke with reporters before the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of her latest film, Christine. And in that conversation, Rebecca Hall not only confirmed that Shane Black's story was on the up and up, she divulged further information that indicated her role in the overall film was trimmed. Hall's first addition to the story was as follows:
I signed on to do something that was a substantial role. [Maya] wasn't entirely the villain -- there have been several phases of this -- but I signed on to do something very different to what I ended up doing.
Not only does this new information confirm the fact that Marvel Studios meddled with the story of Iron Man 3, in order to serve some sort of agenda on their hands, it also reaffirms the fact that Maya Hansen's heel turn in the second act wasn't just a cheap trick. Unfortunately, the full extent of her intentions was never revealed, as Aldritch Killian and The Mandarin took the spotlight as the villains in the trilogy ending installment that eventually went on to make $1.2 billion worldwide. Still, the Iron Man 3 that could have been exists only on the written page of any closely guarded or discarded drafts that exist to this day.
Perhaps the greatest cut of all when it comes to the tale of Iron Man 3 and the systematic reduction of Maya Hansen, is the fact that the big changes to Rebecca Hall's participation in the film came after she had been working on the film for quite some time. As she explains in her further comments on the matter, Maya's fate was changed rather late in the game:
Halfway through shooting they were basically like, 'What would you think if you just got shot out of nowhere?' I was meant to be in the movie until the end... I grappled with them for awhile and then I said, 'Well, you have to give me a decent death scene and you have to give me one more scene with Iron Man,' which Robert Downey Jr. supported me on.
That newly minted death scene in Iron Man 3 basically consisted Maya Hansen still getting shot out of nowhere by Aldrich Killian, all because she decided to threaten him in the name of Tony Stark. While this doesn't sound like the sort of interaction Rebecca Hall was hoping for, it could have been a lot worse when it comes to her mode of exit.
In the meantime, you can see Rebecca Hall next in Christine. The film is currently in limited exhibition, with an October 14th release date in the near future.
