Marvel One-Shot: First Look at Ben Kingsley's Mandarin encore (PHOTOS) | Inside Movies

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Slattery is spending his time entertaining the much more hardened criminals surrounding him in the maximum security Seagate prison (Marvel’s version of Alcatraz, which comic book readers recognize as a key location in the origin story of hero Luke Cage.)

As the short begins, Slattery has agreed to do his first interview with a documentary filmmaker (Argo’s Scoot McNairy), who is chronicling the aftermath of Tony Stark’s latest saga. In the photo above, they are seen sitting in Slattery’s surprisingly expansive prison quarters, which is adorned by memorabilia from his less than stellar past. Note the King Lear poster on the back wall (three and a half stars) which, as Iron Man 3 told us, was once “the toast of Croydon — wherever that is.”

McNairy’s documentary not only delves into the actor’s past (including a look back at an outrageous Miami Vice-like failed TV pilot from the ‘80s) but is trying to figure out if The Ten Rings is really out there, and possibly targeting the jailed thespian for making a mockery of their organization.

After screening the short for EW, here’s what Pearce had to say about the origin of All Hail the King:

Entertainment Weekly: What made you want to jump right back in with one of the most polarizing characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

Drew Pearce: I had spoken to Sir Ben a lot on set because Trevor was a tricky character that everyone was involved with right from the beginning. And it was always a huge risk. I was so grateful to him when he pulled it off after a year of truly worrying about whether we could land that turn. So, “The Further Adventures of Trevor” was something we had talked about on set all the time, and when we sat down to talk about what the short would be, it was Stephen [Broussard, executive producer of Iron Man 3] and Kevin [Feige, Marvel Studios president] and myself and Joss Whedon and Jeremy Latcham [executive producer of The Avengers.] So we kicked around a bunch of ideas and there were loads of them that we liked, and it was actually Joss who at a certain point went like, “Or you could do the one that has Sir Ben Kingsley in it because you have access to Sir Ben Kingsley.”

So you weren’t certain from the get-go that you wanted to do a Trevor short?

No, no, no, no. There were lots of possibilities from the Iron Man 3 world. Joss that said, “You got Sir Ben” at which point we all went, “Hopefully we get Sir Ben” and then I had to go write a script that would mean Sir Ben would commit. We stayed in touch and I sent it to him. I don’t know if he’s ever, and it’s nothing to do with me, but I don’t know if he’s ever been funnier than he is as Trevor. Like, obviously he’s not as funny as Trevor when he’s Gandhi or in Schindler’s List, but what he does with Trevor is incredible.