Marvel’s diminished female villain in Iron Man 3 confirmed by Rebecca Hall

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For all its box office success, the Marvel Cinematic Universe still has one lingering issue that keeps rearing its ugly head time after time: the lack of important roles for women. None of the characters have featured their own film or have had the marquee role of villain in any Marvel movie. That was supposed to change with Iron Man 3, with Rebecca Hall signing on to play an important villain, only to see her character killed off half way through the movie.

Originally, Rebecca Hall’s character, Maya Hansen, was supposed to play a major role, but once shooting began, the creative decision to change from a female villain to Guy Pearce’s Aldrich Killian was made to sell toys. The news broke earlier this year by director Shane Black, but Rebecca Hall recently confirmed the story.

“That’s 100% true,” Hall told the Postmedia Network. “I signed on to do something that was a substantial role. She wasn’t entirely the villain – there have been several phases of this – but I signed on to do something very different to what I ended up doing.”

In the end product, Hall does end up playing a villainous role but as the sidekick to Guy Pearce’s Aldrich Killian and his puppet, the Mandarin, portrayed by Ben Kingsley. Recently, Marvel has tried to address the issue with the casting of Brie Larson as Captain Marvel, who has her own movie in development, but is behind the curve with DCEU’s Wonder Woman set to arrive next summer.

That’s noticeable when you consider DCEU essentially began this year, while the MCU has been around for nearly a decade.

“Look, (Marvel) is paying for their mistakes now,” said Hall, “and I applaud them for casting Brie Larson as Captain Marvel. Hallelujah. It’s about time women started being the heroes of things. They can also be the anti-heroes of the things.”

Hall did end up successfully negotiating her character’s demise in Iron Man 3 with a proper send-off and even managed to squeeze out an extra scene with Iron Man out of it.