Shane Black says Iron Man 3 will be more like a Tom Clancy thriller?

When we heard that Shane Black (KISS KISS, BANG BANG, LETHAL WEAPON) would be taking over the reins of IRON MAN 3, we all pretty much jumped for nerdy joy and probably even popped a boner or two. But we still knew next to nothing regarding the direction of the franchise’s third installment. We didn’t even know whether or not Black – known first and foremost to movie geeks as one of Hollywood’s best scribes – would be writing the thing!

But now thanks to scooper ‘Krullboy’ over at AICN, we’re beginning to glean just a little bit more information on the sequel. Apparently, Black made an appearance at the Omaha Film Festival yesterday and divulged some IRON MAN 3 tidbits among other things. Here’s the scoop:

“[Shane Black] is scheduled to meet with Robert Downey Jr. this week when he returns to L.A. Downey will be contributing to the story and Shane will be writing it in addition to directing.

The studio was not happy with the direction Iron Man 2 took. Iron Man 3 will not be another ‘two men in iron suits fighting each other’ film. Instead, it will be more like a Tom Clancy-thriller, with Iron Man fighting real world villians.

Iron Man 3 will be made after The Avengers and will not feature any other heroes from the Marvel Universe. Marvel is only doing crossover characters to lead up to The Avengers, and once that film is released, the plan is to go back to self-containted single-character stories.”

The Clancy techno-thriller angle sounds interesting and I’m really looking forward to what Black could do with that. But this stuff about no more cross-overs post AVENGERS? Really?