It’s not like we didn’t see this coming, but its still nice to get a confirmation at least. When it was announced that Ben Kingsley was cast as a villain in the Shane Black-directed Iron Man 3, many had speculated that he would be playing the villainous Mandarin. Of course Disney and Marvel denied these rumors and said that the villain would be behind a nefarious plot of releasing a nanobot technology-based virus.

Latino Review has confirmed that Kingsley will actually be the Mandarin, and that there is a power structure that will make the Iron Man 3 story the most complex in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Again Disney and Marvel continue to deny these rumors, but as cameras start to roll today, the site said that can confirm that the Mandarin is indeed in the movie.

According to LR, Kingsley will be more of a behind-the-scenes villain, and is actually the person who sets the terrorist act of releasing the nanobot technology virus into motion. The main villain that audiences will be focusing on is actually Aldrich Killain (Guy Pearce). He will be the one who actually uses the Mandarin’s resources to release the virus.

I trust LR with rumors like these as they were the first to report on Loki being the main villain in The Avengers – even though Marvel continued to deny that rumor during that time as well – and other important plot points for blockbuster movies as well.

But this isn’t the only piece of Iron Man 3 news to report on. Oh no, there is more. We pretty much know that there will be some suit/technology-based villain in Iron Man 3, the additions of James Dale Badge as Coldblood and Ashley Hamilton as Firepower pretty much says it all. But a set photo leak confirms that – and this is a major spoiler so turn back now if you don’t want to ruin anything – a new suit will appear in Iron Man 3. Again turn back now before you can take a look at the leaked photo. But if you want to see it, proceed to scroll down.

Spoiler Alert: Coming Soon has discovered that the Iron Patriot will make an appearance in Iron Man 3. For those who are not familiar with the armor, the Iron Patriot is a combination of the Iron Man suit painted with the colors of Captain America and is worn by Norman Osborn in The Dark Avengers comic line. Obviously we won’t be seeing Osborn wearing the suit any time soon as his character is owned by Sony. So just who is wearing that armor?

Upon closer look, we can see that it is actually Dale donning the Iron Patriot armor. This could possibly mean that Dale and Hamilton will be the muscle men who protect Killan’s nefarious interests.

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[Source: Latino Review, Coming Soon]