MARVEL ONE-SHOT: ALL HAIL THE KING (2014) Short Film Images

Marvel One Shot All Hail The King Images Revisits The Mandarin. Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King (2014) Short Film, written and directed by Drew Pearce and starring Sir Ben Kingsley and Scoot McNairy, will serve as an update on Trevor Slattery: the actor (portrayed by Ben Kingsley) hired to play The Mandarin in Iron Man 3.

All too often, in the news business, getting a story in first takes precedence over getting it right. When word first came down about All Hail the King, there was something of a knee-jerk assumption that Tom Hiddleston‘s Loki, fresh from stealing Thor’s thunder in Thor: The Dark World, would be the featured character.

Tom Hiddleston‘s Loki says “kneel!”

An easy assumption to make, given that the short will debut with The Dark World‘s Blu-ray release; but that turned out not to be the case.

Tom Hiddleston‘s Loki says “Wut The Foresight?” Thor: The Dark World

No, the “King” will not be an ascendant God of Mischief, but the role of a life-time for a C-list actor with too much ambition to pass it up. The title refers to Trevor Slattery, having enjoyed notoriety behind bars, recounting his portrayal of the most wanted terrorist on Earth for a documentarian (Scoot McNairy).

Drew Pearce, who also wrote Iron Man 3, summed it up this way:

“When we find Trevor at the beginning of this short, other than Tony [Stark], he’s the only one out of ‘Iron Man 3‘ to get what he wanted. And even though he was arrested and beat up and had guns pointed at him, now he’s the celebrity that he always wanted to be and he loves it. He absolutely loves it. He is living a somewhat curtailed version of the celebrity life, but he’s also leading arguably a better life than he did when he was living with, like, four other actors at the age of 52 in some bedsit in the south of London. That’s the other fun thing about the starting point is that when we meet Trevor in the short, Trevor won. The Mandarin didn’t, but Trevor in his own way was victorious.”

Ben Kingsley images, from All Hail the King, as the now infamous Trevor Slattery:

Ben Kingsley Marvel One Shot All Hail the King

Ben Kingsley Marvel One Shot All Hail the King

Ben Kingsley Marvel One Shot All Hail the King

Scoot McNairy Ben Kingsley Marvel One Shot All Hail the King

Regarding the dust-up, over how the character of The Mandarin was utilized for Iron Man 3, Drew Pearce had this to add:

“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.”

That statement strikes me as a promise of atonement, to source material fans, for squandering the potential of Iron Man’s  one true nemesis. A note that The Ten Rings organization is very real and still around, suggesting that Trevor Slattery was impersonating a legend that just happened to be real. Of course that’s wishful thinking; but at the very least, All Hail the King could now be considered as more than just an epilogue to Iron Man 3. The short could turn out to be a lead-in or go-between chapter for upcoming installments of the franchise.

Leave your thoughts on these photos, from the Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King short film, below in the comments section. For more All Hail the King photos, videos, and information, visit our Marvel One-Shot Page, subscribe to us by Email, “follow” us on Twitter, Tumblr, or “like” us on Facebook. The film short All Hail the King will be available on the Thor: The Dark World Blu-ray Combo release on February 25, 2014.

Source: EW, FirstShowing