Director Jon Favreau told CBR News that it was important to get the fans on board for next summer's Iron Man as they are the Litmus test for the rest of the movie-going public.  "The biggest hurdle was getting the comic book audience to know that we got the right guy playing Tony Stark," explained Favreau.  "That we're handling the movie with the right tone, with the right humor, with the right personality, with the right look and to get the suit right because that's the only people who know who Iron Man is right now, are the fans.  Now it's about educating the rest of the public, and what Transformers showed is that if you have enough visual interest on the screen there will be a curiosity about the movie.

The big test on whether or not the fans would get on board was last month's Comic-Con in San Diego.  What did the director think of the positive response from the fans?  "It was awesome because you don't know," said Favreau.  "You could die on the vine [at Comic-Con].  If they decide you're Catwoman, you're done.  Comic-Con can drive a stake through the heart of a property like this where it's not like Superman or Batman or Spider-Man where everyone knows it in our culture.  This is something where there's going to be an education process.  By showing it to the fans first, they are going to decide whether they like the movie or not based on what we show them.  From here we can build out."

Now that they've made a splash at Comic-Con, what's next for the filmmakers?  "In this film, the challenge was satisfying the fans of the books," Favreau explained.  "In another movie it's reinventing a franchise that's been done before.  Each movie has its own challenge and in our case this was the place to show the footage for the first time and I think the gamble paid off.  People seem to respond to it.  From what I've read online, from what I felt in the room, and now Paramount, who's distributing the film, is like, 'We've got to get a trailer together!'  They were the same people that were like, 'We shouldn't show a trailer yet' when Transformers was coming out.  Like, 'It's too early now.'  When they saw the fan response [at Comic-Con], it's changing the way they approach things, so Comic-Con is a very valuable way of putting your finger on the pulse of pop culture and pop culture is being driven by fanboys right now.  So, lucky for us Iron Man is a title that they like.  Hopefully it will slowly roll out to the general population leading up to May 2."