9) Iron Man
Iron Man is a fine first movie from Marvel Studios, a funny, action-packed superhero flick and origins tale – and there’s not much there to suggest the movie was just made up on the fly. And yet, made up on the fly it was, according to star Jeff Bridges, who describes a process that sounds very much like Robert Downey Jr. and director Jon Favreau just running with whatever ideas came into their heads then going to shoot.
We mostly have Bridges to thank for having the lowdown on how Iron Man clumsily came to be. According to him: “They had no script, man.” Instead, Favreau and Downey would improvise sequences in rehearsals and call writers on the day to flesh out their outline for the movie. Apparently, the release date came well before the script; says Bridges: “You would think with a $200 million movie you’d have the shit together, but it was just the opposite.”