Terrence Howard Just As Confused About 'Iron Man 2' Recasting As You Were

Last week it was announced via Variety that Terrence Howard was being replaced by Don Cheadle as Jim Rhodes in the sequel to last summers surprise hit, “Iron Man.” The studio cited Howard’s demand for a significant salary increase as the reason for the replacement, but according Howard’s interview with NPR (via CHUD) he didn’t request a major increase in salary and found out he had been fired with the rest of us, by reading Variety.

“It was the surprise of a lifetime. There was no explanation. [The contract] just…up and vanished. I read something about in the trades implicating that it was about money or something, but apparently the contracts that we write and sign aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on, sometimes… Promises aren’t kept, and good faith negotiations aren’t always held up.”

We can’t help think that this could be just damaged control on Howard’s part, playing the part of the hurt and confused artist who has taken advantage of by those mean studio executives. Howard is known to be difficult to work with due to his ego and it doesn’t seem ridiculous that he would have asked for a major increase in salary now that “Iron Man” is a viable franchise, which seems much more likely than Marvel changing token black actors just for kicks.

Note that Howard doesn’t outright deny that he asked for more money, but he does skirt around that issue. We’ll sure it’ll come out in the wash soon or chatty Favreau will talk about it on his myspace page soon enough.

You can hear Howard talking about it firsthand on NPR. It’s around the 17:30 mark. NPR interviewer Scott Smith notes that Howard’s played a lot of pimps. He asks is there anything different about [the studios] principals and a pimps? “No. Even friendships, even people you support. When it comes down to it, the only true support that you have is the work that you’ve done and the ethics [where] you stand.”