Too Many Irons In the Fire: Though Robert Downey Jr. is signed on for an Iron Man sequel and an Avengers film that will group together Marvel heroes including Thor, the Hulk, and Captain America, the actor is starting to sound a little concerned about the latter property. "If we don't get it right, it's really going to suck," he told MTV. "Nothing that happened in Iron Man is really outside the realm of possibility. Once you start talking about Valhalla and supersized super soldiers and jolly green giants, it warrants much further discussion." [MTV]

· Election Day is finally here, and celebrities are pulling out all the last-minute stops: "Patricia Heaton was on the trail in Indiana for McCain, [while] Hank Williams Jr. started the National Anthem at a rally for Sarah Palin in Colorado Springs, Colo., by saying, "You know, I'm usually at 'Monday Night Football' tonight, but Colorado, this is a lot more important tonight. Join me now in our national -- you know, that, uh, Mr. Obama's not real crazy about, we're singing it right now." Should he win, Obama's first order of business is replacing "The Star Spangled Banner" with the Subway $5 Footlong jingle. Too bad there's nothing you can do about it, Colorado! [Variety]
· Charlize Theron will star opposite Tom Cruise in The Tourist, playing a female Interpol agent who's always standing in a 12-inch-deep ditch for some reason. [Variety]
· Iron Man helps nudge Marvel comfortably into the black in its third-quarter, but the company warns that 2009 should provide less robust dividends. And that's even factoring in the money they'll save on Terrence Howard's personal moustache groomer and fresh fruit requirements! [Variety]

After the jump: Who is Jack Falcone, and why is Steven Soderbergh making him?

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When it was announced that Don Cheadle would be taking on Terrence Howard's role in Iron Man 2, a simple explanation of "financial differences" (as well as an inability to get the War Machine costume sufficiently baby-wiped) was all that was forthcoming from the filmmakers' side. Then, Howard spoke to NPR and compared the Marvel braintrust to a non-singing network of pimps, forcing the filmmaking team to take the gloves off. Now, in a discussion with EW, sources close to Marvel and director Jon Favreau leaked the real details behind Howard's firing, and they involve bad acting and one very surprising salary:

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The "pimps" at Marvel Studios may have finally closed the deal that pulled the last inch of Iron Man's blockbuster rug from beneath Terrence Howard, but a radical group of franchise purists are fighting his ouster with the new petition "Terrence Howard as War Machine in Iron Man 2." It seems a legal impossibility at this point, with Don Cheadle locked in as Col. Jim Rhodes, but! As the scrappy revolutionaries in Audrina Patridge's neighborhood showed us on Tuesday, there is no affront that can't be corrected with a surge of Democratic fervour — and maybe some fanboy earnestness to spare:

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In an appearance Saturday on NPR's Weekend Edition, Terrence Howard interrupted his discussion of his new album with a Zen meditation on his recent departure from the Iron Man franchise. And if it seemed unusual last week that Howard might bow out of the blockbuster's sequel, leaving his role as Tony Stark confidante Jim Rhodes (and his own heroic alter-ego War Machine) to the capable, cheaper hands of Don Cheadle, the scenario didn't get any clearer as the actor wavered between the high road and calling Marvel Studios a scandalous gang of thieves and pimps:

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· In what's being labelled as an effort to snag iTunes marketshare, Dell will give PC buyers the option to preload Iron Man on its new computers. Before you laugh: That incursion is being led by a man with whom Apple settled a wrongful-termination lawsuit in 2005. Never underestimate a software-wonk scorned. [THR]
· And if you act now, Paramount and Marvel may throw in five more co-releases — including Thor, Captain America and The Avengers — at no extra charge through 2011! Operators are standing by! [Variety]

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Appearing before throngs of adoring Japanese movie fans accompanied by his ever-present quartet of Ironjuko dancers was the inimitable Robert Downey Jr., whose upper lip appears to have crossed the point of no return since last we checked in with the unabashedly facial-hair-curious actor. But the look has grown more severe now—the furrowed brow, the unkempt hair, the dark glasses, and constipated pout all seem to suggest another man's superstar aura entirely. Help us, won't you, get to the bottom of this Robert Downey Jr. mini-mystery, by voting in yet another of those Defamer reader polls you love so much. All aboard for mustache rides after the jump!

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The soul-deadening imposition of commercial brands on your moviegoing experience got even more shameless this morning when the oft-overlooked ring of Hell know as "brandcameo" unveiled the winners of its fourth annual Product Placement Awards. You could probably guess at least most of the heavyweight competitors — your Apples, your Fords, your Manolos — from a glance at the last year's worth of releases, but that doesn't make the year's findings any less remarkable in context: The surveyors counted an average of 22.1 brands in each of the 20 films this year to have a No. 1 weekend at the box office. That number is down from 2007, when an average of nearly 25 brands were counted among the year's 32 top releases.

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Hints abound today that the wheels may be coming off the souped-up Dark Knight bandwagon — and not just at the box office, where some estimates have Tropic Thunder usurping the top spot this weekend. TDK's sweeping cultural influence may be in jeopardy as well, with its Greatest! Movie! Ever! status now reduced to a nonsensical three-way tie at IMDB and a pair of formidable opponents shaping up across town at Camp Iron Man. In case you missed it, Robert Downey Jr. has already resorted to dramatic efforts of Batsabotage ("Didn't get it, still can't tell you what happened in the movie, what happened to the character and in the end they need him to be a bad guy. ... You know what? F-ck DC comics"), and now jealousy-inspiring actor/screenwriter Justin Theroux has enlisted exactly the kind of metaphorical bitchslap we'd expect from his soaring geekcake talent:

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Three months is apparently an eternity in comic-book years: Just when we thought we'd gotten our heads around the impact of Iron Man's smashing success, it looks like that The Dark Knight's Batrocket into the box-office record books (another $24.6 million on Monday!) necessitates a whole new flurry of comics-centric development around Hollywood. And while Wired has a roundup of movers and shakers basking in collective geek glows of summer hits also including Wanted, Hellboy II and The Incredible Hulk, newly flush Warner Bros. handed off a chunk of the spotlight to slumping Bryan Singer just for the hell of it:

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