April 6 marked the first day of principal photography of Iron Man 2 as Jon Favreau Tweets from the set including looks at a sign directing folks to the set as well as his director's chair. However, more than just inanimate objects have been captured from the first day as you can see from the set video to the right and in the information I have to follow.

First off, last night IESB reported Garry Shandling (whom can be seen in the video) was cast as Senator Stern and "appears in a continuation of the final scene from the first Iron Man film, you know that famous 'I am Iron Man' scene." It appears the film will pick up immediately after it left off.

Prior to all of this Robert Downey Jr. was discussing the story of the sequel with MTV and apparently dismissed conversation regarding an alcohol driven storyline from the famed "Iron Man" installment "Demon in a Bottle" saying, "As a matter of fact, I think that’s probably best saved, because it’s such its own storyline."

Downey continued the discussion over at Entertainment Tonight saying, "The film is almost entirely about character, and yet we still have twice as much action as we did last time, so it’s going to be nuts. Essentially Iron Man 2 is about looking behind the armor, or the armature, of a superhero. It’s one thing to say you’re Iron Man, it’s another thing to be fully ready to do that."

Then came new conversation with Terrence Howard who has been replaced as James 'Rhodey' Rhodes in Iron Man 2 by Don Cheadle. Howard in a conversation with Sci-Fi Wire said, "[Marvel] made a choice. They made a very, very bad choice. They didn't keep their word. They didn't honor our contract. They sent everyone out into a field and told them to work and produce a great bounty. You produce a great bounty, and then when it's all in the storehouse, you are not allowed into the storehouse."

He also addresses the consistent conversation regarding Marvel's attempts to lowball everyone but Downey when it came to contract negotiations, "They [lowballed] almost everyone, I think, except Downey throughout the thing. One of the things that actors need to learn to do is take a tip from 'Friends' [whose cast members all held out for higher pay]. You always choose to stick together. One for all and all for one."

Next comes discussion of Cheadle as his replacement and he is kind saying, "I want to see Don Cheadle become me. I want him to do better than me. That's what I really want to see. I think he can. Don Cheadle is the reason I got on Crash. He was one of the producers on Crash, and he called and got me in there. So it's like Don is good by me, anything he does. He's given me the greatest gift I could ever imagine having. Don gave me that, so anything I have, I'll share with him."

With that, as you can see from the pic to the right, we have our first look at Cheadle on set as Rhodes via Spoiler TV who happens to also have 26 other images from the set including looks at Downey and Gwyneth Paltrow. You can also find a few higher resolution shots at Coming Soon and Just Jared.

With Favreau's Twitter account active and the ability of the paps I wouldn't bet if this is a consistent process of set pics and videos, but I am not sure I will be able to have the ability to keep on covering it as I can only imagine it getting increasingly repetitive as things move forward. However, I fully expect to see footage from Iron Man 2 at this year's Comic Con in July and wouldn't be surprised if it brings down the house just as the first one did back in 2007.

NOTE: Thanks to The Playlist for pointing out additional links and quotes for this article.

Related post categories: Clearing the Air, Set Pics, Set Videos : Don Cheadle, Iron Man 2, Jon Favreau, Terrence Howard

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