Iron Man 3: Marvel Responds To Mandarin Backlash

On the stump promoting the September 24th release of "Iron Man 3" on  Blu-ray, Marvel co-president Louis D'Esposito talked to IGN about the way that the Mandarin villain was depicted in the sequel and the fan backlash.

D'Esposito says that the studio was very happy with the results, so don't expect any future sequel to reverse the move with some hokey plot device:

"We thought there would be a little bit of a backlash, but the twist was so wonderful and Ben Kingsley is such a great actor that we thought that would overcome. And I think the box office said that we were right in making that decision. We don't want to piss-off our fans, but it's impossible to please everyone. We thought it was a great twist, we thought it was great story-telling, and that's why we did it."

SPOILERS AHEAD: 

The big twist revealed that the Mandarin was a hoax. Kingsley's character's real name was Trevor, a drug addicted actor who was playing the villain for the camera while the real big bad was out messing with a bio-weapon.