By Ron Wynn
NASHVILLE, TN — Long before he became,e part of the Marvel universe, Don Cheadle was an accomplished, critically acclaimed actor. But now, after 12 years as an MCU supporting actor, Cheadle’ status is about to change. He is preparing for upcoming “Armor Wars” movie in which he will have a more prominent role. Cheadle said of the project, “In every successive film, he’s coming more and more out of Tony’s shadow and becoming his own person. But we still haven’t explored who he is and really dug into that yet. That’s what the movie is for.”
Cheadle’s decision to join the Marvel team occurred in a most unusual manner. As he told Variety last week, he had to make a quick decision on what has become a lengthy and lucrative pact. According to his interview, Cheadle, an accomplished actor with lots of previous credits, asked Marvel what the additional five movies would be, to which Marvel said, “It’s going to be these Avengers and this is what it is, so you have to say yes or no.” Cheadle asked what the trajectory of his character would be, to which Marvel responded, “We don’t know any of that, but this is what it is so you’ve got an hour.”
Only when Cheadle explained that he was at his child’s birthday party did Marvel extend the timeline to two hours. The actor added, “So we played laser tag for two hours and I was talking to my wife and we thought about it and talked to my agent and tried to get as much information as we could.”
Cheadle accepted the role, which threw him into the world of CGI and green-screen filmmaking. The actor said that Marvel isn’t so far off from more dramatic fare at its core, explaining, “You’re trying to do the same thing always, which is to try and create circumstances for your character to step into inside your own head so that you believe what it is you’re doing, and then the audience can believe.”
The release date for “Armor Wars” has not yet been announced.
