'Iron Man 2' Exploits Blu-ray Capacity

22 Sep, 2010 By: John Latchem

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As producer of Iron Man 2 and president of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige relished the opportunity to use the Blu-ray format to deliver an experience fans would enjoy.

Participating in an online discussion about the film Sept. 22, Feige previewed several extras created for Iron Man 2 that are available with the Blu-ray version exclusively, including an interactive “S.H.I.E.L.D. Data Vault” mode and an extensive behind-the-scenes documentary called Ultimate Iron Man.

“With more disc space we were able to offer the long-form documentary, and superb video and audio quality, as well as the multiple viewing modes, allowing viewers the choice of how deep they want to delve into the extra content,” Feige said.

According to Feige, director Jon Favreau was very helpful in allowing cameras to capture the process of making the film.

“Jon was very open to having cameras on set and sharing the process with the fans,” Feige said. “We had the great Sean Ricigliano following him with a camera at every turn.”

With Iron Man 2 paving the way for next year’s Thor and Captain America movies, and ultimately an Avengers movie in 2012, Feige said that Blu-ray has given producers a number of great opportunities for promotional tie-ins. For example, the Vault offers profiles about characters and events from not just the two “Iron Man” movies, but also The Incredible Hulk, and several clips teasing the Marvel movies to come. Feige said the Vault has been in the works since the original film was released in 2008.

“One of the great things about Blu-ray technology is the ability to expand and update the content via BD Live, and that's certainly part of our discussion,” Feige said. “We've had fun discussions about how to expand this experience on future releases, but clearly we need to wait and see how it is received on this release. For the first time it's exciting that BD Live can be part of the discussions for marketing our upcoming movies.”

Feige said it was important to deliver a Blu-ray experience that would satisfy the fans, which is not an easy task considering that Blu-rays of other popular titles have raised expectations about what can be accomplished with the format.

“It's been two years since we released a Blu-ray,” Feige said. “We spent a lot of time looking at what other discs have done successfully, particularly Paramount's releases of the great Star Trek and Transformers 2 Blu-rays.”

Paramount Home Entertainment releases Iron Man 2 Sept. 28 in single-DVD ($29.98), two-DVD ($34.98) and Blu-ray/DVD combo pack ($39.98) versions.
 

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