‘Iron Man 4’ Plot Spoilers: ‘All Hail The King’ Hints At Existence Of ‘Real Mandarin!’ Is This Confirmation Of Another Tony Stark Solo?

The short film "All Hail The King" features Sir Ben Kingsley reprising his role as Trevor Slattery-still not the real Mandarin. But did he confirm the existence of a 'Real Mandarin?'

Marvel Studios has done an excellent job at linking their Cinematic Universe together. It has set a standard that its rivals can only envy. The main links to the chain are the Marvel One-shots. These are the short films that they have made exclusively for the DVD package. The short films serve as a link between movies. Take "All Hail The King" as an example: it seeks to resolve some issues that emerged in "Iron Man 3" and at the same time, subtly but effectively teases the possibility of an "Iron Man 4."

Drew Pearce co-wrote the screenplay for "Iron Man 3" and is the writer-director of "All Hail The King," the short film that's included in the "Thor: The Dark World" DVD package. He dropped some hints from his interview with Voices From Krypton:

"It's weird. The idea for the short was there before any of the kind of storm in a teacup following our Mandarin reveal. What's actually interesting as well is that the evidence of the 'real' Mandarin is laid out in all of the Iron Man movies, as well as all the stuff we said around the release of the movie. The Ten Rings are part of 'Iron Man 1', they make an appearance in deleted scenes in 'Iron Man 2', and we're very specific about the fact that he's a real guy that exists in the world.

In fact, we talked about it a lot when the movie came out. There was always the sense that this term had been co-opted by Killian's think tank. Obviously the events in the short made that even more explicit. The weird thing is I don't have any regrets with what we did with Iron Man and I feel no reason to apologize for it. The short kind of let me join some dots that were already there. But it wasn't the reason we did it. The reason we did it is that we wanted to play with Trevor Slattery some more...

Oh, yes, totally, but I would hate for anyone to think I was apologizing for a twist that I'm deeply proud of. I feel like it would have been dishonest to Iron Man 3 if we'd made Trevor the real Mandarin after all and it was a double bluff. I think where the short leads to is a more exciting place and hopefully not one that betrays the intention of Iron Man 3."

Pearce was not so subtle when he spoke to Entertainment Weekly:

"By the end of the short, there are definitely a lot of exciting other places that are brought up in it that could then go in the Marvel universe. You know, whether that's an Iron Man movie or another one going into Phase Two or Three."

In the short film, Slattery is trembling with fear for his life. The explanation is that he may have gotten the ire of the real person he was trying to imitate. That means, he had prior knowledge of his existence. This is further endorsed by Pearce in USA Today:

"Imagine a real terrorist organization whose beliefs were long held and religious for thousands of years, and imagine a drunk, British actor coming along and essentially telling the world that he's the face of your organization. I think they would be right to be quite angry."

Could the showdown between Stark and arch-nemesis Mandarin be the plot for "Iron Man 4?"