News Bites: More on the Cheadle/Howard Switch, Some Bruno, and a Little Godot

November 3, 2008

You might remember the massive shocker last month that Terrence Howard wouldn’t be returning as Rhodes in Iron Man 2 because he got replaced by Don Cheadle. The actor said he found out through the trades like the rest of us, and rumors began to run rampant. Now EW is trying to get to the bottom of things and got an interesting bit of news from insiders who say that two things were to blame for the recasting — money and Howard’s performance. The latter isn’t too interesting — apparently Favs wasn’t happy with the footage.

But the former — it appears that Mr. Howard was the highest paid actor on set. Oh yes, he signed first for some hefty sum, and no one else, not even the Iron Man Robert Downey Jr. got as much. So the story goes — Howard got a drastically reduced offer for #2 unsurprisingly, balked, and Cheadle was tapped. It all sounds fishy to me. Who let the pay get so out of whack, and why are the powers that be upset with his performance when everyone else likes it!?

Meanwhile, the Bruno shenanigans continue in a rather appropriate forum. Yahoo reports that Sacha Baron Cohen’s character crashed a rally supporting Proposition 8 — the bill trying to ban gay marriage in California. I wonder what his poster said…