There has been a lot of speculation as to why Terrence Howard was recently booted off the lucrative Iron Man franchise as James Rhodes (who eventually becomes War Machine.) Howard stated he actually was blind-sided by the announcement and was not even told directly. However, according to EW, Howard was the first actor signed on for Iron Man, and manged to be the highest paid actor on the project even above Robert Downey Jr. EW then goes on to state that “Favreau and his producers were ultimately unhappy with Howard’s performance, and spent a lot of time cutting and reshooting his scenes.”

And now with Iron Man 2, the writer origianlly decided to minimize Jim Rhodes‚Äô role in the sequel which resulted in Marvel offering Howard an estimated 50% to 80% pay cut from the first movie which was more in line with the supporting cast member‚Äôs salary of the first film. Of course this didn’t sit well with Howard and the rest they say…is history. And Don Cheadle is now sitting pretty.

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