Iron Man 3 stars Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark who faces threats from a terrorist group called the Mandarin. After Stark's home is attacked, he tracks members of the Mandarin group to Tennessee. He discovers the Mandarin is a creation of Aldrich Killian seeking revenge against Stark. Killian's plan is to kidnap the President, but Stark works to defeat Killian and rescue Pepper Potts, saving the President. The film was a major box office success, grossing over $1 billion due to extensive marketing using social media and other techniques not available for earlier Iron Man films.

1. The newly released Iron Man 3, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow, starts off with a
flashback to New Years Eve 1999. Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) and fellow scientist Maya Hanseen,
inventor of a treatment that can cure crippling injuries called Extrimis and because of this disabled
scientist Aldrich Killian offers them a place at his company at Advanced Idea Mechanics (AIM) but
Stark refuses the offer ad humiliating Aldrich in the process. Then in to the present day Stark is a
creator of many high tech and near indestructible Iron Man suits however it causes a bit of friction
with his wife Pepper Potts (Paltrow). A group of terrorists called Mandarin have recently done a lot
of attacks around America. One of the attacks seriously injures Stark’s chief security therefore he
calls out the Mandarin group and threatens them over a televised interview and giving him details of
where to find him. This puts him and his wife in danger as the Mandarin now knows where he lives.
Hanseen then comes to his house to warn him of incoming attacks from the Mandarin. Whilst this
conversation is on-going, Mandarin attack Stark’s and Potts’ house. All three survive the attacks and
with the help of a computer Stark finds out that a main member of Mandarin is based in Tennessee
so Stark flies over to find him. However his suit runs out of power and he crashes and cannot return
to California and because of the state of his house majority of the world thinks he is dead. Whilst
trying to fix his suit in Tennessee he starts talking to a ten year old boy called Harley who is in awe of
him and can’t believe he is alive. Harley then starts talking about the history of the town and
mentions an attack on the area by the Mandarin group. They both go and discover where the attack
had taken place and realised five soldiers were killed in the attack and discover one of them must
have triggered the attack. He then works out that one of the soldiers didn’t get killed and thinks he
might be part of the Mandarin and speaks to local people in the area to see where he might find
him. He realises that the soldier’s deaths were cover ups for Extrimis’ flaws of theterrorist attack
killing and not saving people. Stark then realises what he is in for when two Mandarin agents attack
him in a local. With Harley’s help Stark tracks Mandarin and realises they’re in Miami. Stark then
improves his weapons so he can finish off the Mandarin. During extra research he works out the
Mandarin is a creation by Killian and was a revenge act from that New Years Eve party back in 1999.
Stark discovers that Killian’s next plan is to attack and kidnap the president of America whilst on Air
Force One. Stark manages to save majority of the passengers on board but doesn’t manage to save
the President as Killian still manages to kidnap him and destroys Air Force One in the process. They
manage to track Killian down to a damaged oil tanker where Killian plans to kill the President live on
television. Stark then goes to find Potts and a friend called James Rhodes who have both been
captured by the Mandarin. Stark then calls all his Iron Man suits, he and Rhodes control all the suits
to try and kill Killian. Rhodes then saves the President and takes him to safety. Stark then realises
Potts is held by the Mandarin on an oil rig which then collapses around them and thinks Potts falls to
her death. Stark then finds Killian and puts him in an Iron Man suit which self destructs but fails to
kill him. Potts’ extremis powers enable her to survive and ends up killing Killian. To thank Potts for
her part in taking out The Mandarin he devotes his love for her by destroying every single one of his
Iron Man suits. With the Extrimis’ help Stark undergoes surgery to remove bits of scrap metal near
his heart from the Iron Man suits. The surgeons discover his iron arc chest plate that they cannot
remove. Emphasising the fact he will always be Iron Man.

2. Iron Man 3 has multiple genres of Action, Sci Fi and Thriller. This gives it a wide range of a target
audience of mainly all males over 16 as males over this age tend to have interest in at least one of
the mentioned genres. It was realised in the cinemas on 25th
April 2013 and has already generated
over $1 billion in the box office (as of May 19th
2013) and became the 4th
fastest film in history to
reach that milestone and became the 6th
film to be distributed by Disney to reach the $1 billion mark
and was the second highest grossing film to be distributed by Disney. It also became the fourth
highest grossing comic book/marvel film. After its first weekend it already made more than the
previous two Iron Man films. A new director was used for the third movie. The first two films were
directed by John Favreu but in the third film it was directed by Shane Black. However Kevin Feige has
produced all three films but the first film was also produced by Avi Arad.
Many reasons why this film made more money than the other two Iron Man films is because there
was a lot more advertising and marketing used for the third film. There was a slightly bigger budget
for this film so they could spend more on advertising. The main reason this film made more money
was because of the popularity and rise in social networking sites. If film companies or actors or
people involved in the film can spread the word on Twitter and Facebook to nearly 1 billion people
around the world. When the first two films were out there wasn’t anywhere near that many people
on social networking sites. In the same way the increase in popularity of YouTube has helped greatly
because as of 22nd
May the trailer for Iron Man 3 has 18 and a half million views on YouTube (That’s
more than people that live in Holland, Chile and Portugal.) Due to a bigger budget more adverts on
tv could be used at peak television times on popular channels and programmes therefore more
people will see the trailer and more people will want to watch the film. This also means they could
put the trailer in the cinemas before some of the biggest blockbusters. Posters were also placed on a
lot of billboards all over the world in some of the busiest cities in the world where millions of people
walk through everyday. If every person who walks through a city centre tells two people about the
film after seeing the poster on a billboard there could be around 10 million people aware of the film
after one day of advertising.

3. A lot of research needs to be done in order for a film to be more successful. The better and more
thorough the research is the better quality of film will be made. The first techniques used would be
primary and secondary research. Primary research is when you collect information yourself using
questionnaires, focus groups and interviews. This is helpful because then you know what content to
put in the film that the public will like and have an interest in. Secondary research is when you
collect information on the internet, in newspapers, magazines etc. In Iron Man 3 for example, the
creators would’ve gone online and found out what went well and what didn’t in the previous two
Iron Man films. The next set of research film companies and producers would do is qualitative and
quantitative research, which is similar to primary research. This type of research would usually
happen after an intimate screening of an audience of around 100 people of their target audience
would watch the film before it comes out in the cinema and they give their opinion on what they
liked and didn’t like and what they didn’t like. That part is the quantitative research where they
collect people’s opinions on what they would change or what they think should be kept in the film.
The qualitative part of it is when they collect it all and makes stats and numbers out of it. For
example if you asked ‘What do you think of the Iron Man suit?’ they would then say 60% of people
said… 30% of people said… and 10% of people said… If all this research is done properly then the film
will be a huge success.
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