Guy Pearce Signs on for an Integral Supporting Role in ‘Iron Man 3’

Hot on the heels of news that Sir Ben Kinglsey would be taking the villain role in Iron Man 3 (though it apparently won’t be the hero’s arch nemesis Mandarin), yet another key role in the comic book sequel has been cast. Variety has word that Guy Pearce, who will next be seen in Prometheus and currently has Lockout in theaters, is in final talks to play geneticist Aldrich Killian, a character from Warren Ellis’ six-issue storyline Extremis (on which the sequel is loosely based) who co-created the titular technology that is said to hack the body’s repair center and rewrite the normal human blueprint with a better one. Read on! In the comic, after crafting the technology with a character named Maya Hansen, Killian introduces it to terrorists and then to Tony Stark in order to prove the value of Extremis. It’s not clear if the storyline will be exactly …