Iron Man 2 Sneak Peek

IGN Movies visited the set of Iron Man 2 yesterday where we got the chance to speak at length with star Robert Downey Jr., director Jon Favreau, and Marvel Studios honcho Kevin Feige. While our full set visit report is under embargo for another month, Paramount Pictures and Marvel have allowed us to provide you with this brief overview of some of the cool things we witnessed.

Iron Man 2, now roughly halfway through production, is being shot at Raleigh Studios in the Los Angeles suburb of Manhattan Beach. Marvel announced last year that they will shoot all of their upcoming projects -- including Thor, The First Avenger: Captain America, and The Avengers -- here.

Upon arriving at Marvel's offices on the lot, the invited journalists sat down for a lengthy roundtable interview with studio boss Feige, the self-proclaimed fanboy shepherding all of Marvel's in-house productions through development. In addition to chatting about Iron Man 2, Feige was also extraordinarily forthcoming about Marvel's upcoming slate. Look for specifics of what Feige had to say about these projects Friday.

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) in his workshop in Iron Man 2; click for hi-res.

We were then escorted to the set of Tony Stark's workshop that was seen in the first film (it was the setting of Tony's humorous early attempts at flying in the Mark II Iron Man armor). Favreau made his first of many friendly pit-stops to chat with the online press, a relationship he aptly analogized as being similar to the one between athletes and sports writers. While being mindful of spoilers, the director did reveal that Iron Man 2 is all about the repercussions of Tony's abandonment of his secret identity at the end of the first film and his lingering issues with his late father Howard Stark (played by Mad Men's John Slattery).

The scenes we witnessed being filmed had Tony examining a miniature model of the 1974 Stark Expo (think of it as the World's Fair had it been staged by Howard Stark). The second scene we observed had Tony's interacting with his A.I. servant Jarvis as Downey pantomimed using the Minority Report-esque holographic computer display seen in the first film.

Our set visit concluded with a chat with Downey, who is every bit as charming, smart and silver-tongued in person as the character he so brilliantly portrays. We had the chance to witness some very cool things while on-set but, alas, that's all we can say until next month. Rest assured that Iron Man 2 not only looks as exciting and fun as its predecessor but also grander in scope and full of even more interesting characters and cool set-pieces. Check back Friday for our chat with Kevin Feige about Marvel's upcoming movies.