The versatile and talented actor Robert Downey Jr. will take on the role of Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) in Iron Man, the first feature film to be produced independently by Marvel Entertainment.  Jon Favreau is directing the film, which will be distributed by Paramount Pictures and is slated to debut in theaters on May 2, 2008.  Filming is slated to begin in February 2007.

Downey is an excellent choice for a number of reasons -- certainly the actor's own well-publicized struggles with drugs and alcohol resonate strongly with the Iron Man character, whose struggle with alcoholism was famously chronicled in Iron Man issues #120-#128 (March to November of 1979), which were collected in the trade paperback, Demon in a Bottle.  Perhaps because he does not have any innate superpowers it is Tony Stark, out of all the major Marvel characters, who best represents the duality of human nature, the close balance between intellectual gifts and creativity on the one hand and the all too human frailties of arrogance and chemical dependence on the other.