The Walt Disney Company acquired fabled creative institution Marvel Entertainment, LLC, and its stable of 8,000 colorfully clad characters in 2009. Disney fans—and movie fans everywhere—flocked to the recently released Iron Man and Captain America: The First Avenger movies, and Marvel’s The Avengers has broken box-office records around the world.
Encouraged by the runaway success of Spider-Man and X-Men for other studios, Marvel Studios took matters into its own hands, and embarked on its debut solo film production, 2008′s Iron Man. Iron Man gleefully continued the tradition of unconventional choices for key creative roles, including another indie darling, Swingers’ Jon Favreau, in the director’s chair, and Robert Downey Jr. in the dual role of wealthy industrialist Tony Stark and his iron-plated creation. Iron Man took flight to the tune of almost $600 million worldwide, eclipsing Marvel’s most optimistic expectations. ”
This stunningly real Iron Man promotional statuette was located at the Disney Studio in 2010 to promote Iron Man 2. After that, it lived at Walt Disney Imagineering for a while where an Imagineer equipped him with lighting before turning him over to the Walt Disney Archives for safekeeping. It was designed by Studio Oxmox and manufactured by Muckle Mannequins. The statue was released with two paint schemes, one brilliant and “clean,” the other scuffed up and “battle tested.” This statuette is of the “clean” variety, the way you would see Tony Stark as Iron Man when he first donned the suit.
By D23′s Max Lark
