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In a wide-ranging interview covering his most memorable roles, actor Don Cheadle has revealed the unusual circumstances that led to him being cast as War Machine, starting with Marvel’s Iron Man 2.
As most MCU fans know, James “Rhodey” Rhodes was originally played by Terrence Howard in the first Iron Man film, but he was jettisoned from the franchise after reportedly being asked to take a pay cut, which left Marvel Studios scrambling to find a replacement for the sequel. What fans might not know is that Cheadle had narrowly lost the role to Howard, so it was definitely an interesting moment to have the studio call him up and ask him if he was still interested in the part. Although, according to The AV Club, Marvel didn’t exactly give Cheadle a whole lot of time to decide.
“I don’t think it was [Kevin] Feige. I don’t know who was on the phone. But they said, “Hey, this is the role. We want you to do this. It’s a six-picture deal.” I was like, “What?! Oh, uh, okay…” And I’m trying to do the math. I’m like, “That’s 11 or 12 years. I’m not sure.” And they’re like, “Well, we need to know, because if you’re not saying yes, then we’re gonna move on to the next person. So you’ve got an hour.”
An hour to decide 12 years, and a role and parts that I don’t even know, in movies that are coming down that I have no idea what they’ll be. I said, “I’m at my kid’s laser tag party right now.” They said, “Oh! Oh, take two hours.” So generous!”
While ducking laser tag bolts, Cheadle let his wife know about the offer and asked her what he should do because, again, this was a pretty big decision. Obviously, she was on board. Cheadle took the part, and his interpretation of the classic Iron Man character became a fan favorite for a solid decade, which means his math was pretty spot-on.
(Via The AV Club)
When COVID-19 has forced most of the pro wrestling industry to go on hiatus, WWE was somehow able to resume running live television shows multiple times a week, event after someone in the company had been diagnosed with the coronavirus. How exactly is the promotion able to do this, with the number of people needed to produce live television and the amount of physical contact involved in professional wrestling? According to Jerry Demings, the Mayor of Orange County, Florida, it’s because WWE has been deemed an “essential business.”
The Orange County government provided updates on the coronavirus situation in its area today and Demings was asked (about thirty minutes into the video of the press conference on Facebook) if WWE was deemed an essential business, or if they got a special permit to stay open. Demings replied that “They were not initially deemed an essential business. With some conversation with the governor’s office regarding the governor’s order, they were deemed an essential business, so, therefore, they were allowed to remain open.” The mayor did not explain why WWE’s classification was changed.
In regards to the coronavirus case on the roster, Demings said that “I don’t know any of the details of that, obviously, because of HIPAA laws,” but stated that he believed the billion-dollar, publicly-traded corporation would treat its roster like a family. “That’s like a little family,” he said of WWE and its independent contractors. “A small family of professional athletes that wrestle. And if one of my family members tested positive in my house, that would be concerning to me. We would have to make some provisions in my house to make sure that the rest of us not get infected, and so I would assume that, from a business perspective, the WWE is doing that type of analysis of its own family.”