Iron Man 3 Trailer Premieres, Looks Nolan-esque

Per Marvel’s official YouTube account, the premiere of a trailer for the third installment of the Iron Man franchise hit the web today, and it would seem to be…er…very serious business indeed. You may know that gone from the director chair is Jon Favreau, who delivered the whiz-bang, snappy first two films. He’s replaced by director Shane Black, who has a knack for snappiness himself as the writer of the Lethal Weapon movies as well as the underrated actioners The Long Kiss Goodnight, The Last Boy Scout and the woefully underseen and wonderful Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

To me, the great thing about the Iron Man movies to this point is that is that they’ve been a boatload of fun — Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark kept everything light and snarky and the villains, among them the over-the-top Mickey Rourke as Whiplash and perennial scene-stealer Sam Rockwell as rival tycoon Justin Hammer, gave the films a great comic book feel without too much self-seriousness. But with the premiere of Black’s Iron Man 3 trailer (the plot of which is still largely unknown), does the Iron Man franchise seem to be headed in a Dark Knight Rises direction? And does it need that? Seems a bit out of place given the massive fun of the first two Iron Man films and the subsequent Avengers movie this past summer, and Ben Kingsley doesn’t look to be a particular “hoot” as Mandarin, the film’s assumed main villain. What do you guys think? Promising or maybe the wrong way to go? Fanboys, comic-lovers and ticket-buying public unite: what do you think of this first look?