News out of Hollywood has Marvel Studios and Disney in talks with Ben Kingsley to star as the big bad in Shane Black‘s Iron Man 3, but everyone is denying that he's up for the classic Iron Man villain, Mandarin.
Kingsley's character can be involved in the spread of a nanotechnological virus as an alternative; a big element in the story for the third film, loosely based on Warren Ellis' six-issue ‘Extremis' comic series. Most probably because China is one of the world's most important film markets and the Mandarin is a Chinese ruler and scientist/martial arts expert, but who worked with the communists in 1963.
Shane Black is also co-writing the screenplay alongside Drew Pearce.
Robert Downey Jr. will once again portray Tony Stark and Iron Man for the fourth time, and Scarlett Johansson is expected to return to the franchise as The Black Widow.
The plot is rumored to revolve around the use of nanobots to replicate the super serum used to turn Steve Rogers into Captain America.
Iron Man 3 comes to theaters May 3rd, 2013 and production starts this May in North Carolina.
As for Kingsley, he next appears in Sacha Baron Cohen's The Dictator.
