MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios

by JoAnna Robinson

Before Iron Man started shooting, Jon Favreau and his collaborators moved out of the overcrowded Marvel Studios office above the Mercedes-Benz dealership in Beverly Hills, leaving the Marvel Studios executives behind and relocating the movie’s production to the old Howard Hughes studios in dusty Playa Vista, California. (As a bonus, that was one step further away from supervision by Marvel’s East Coast executives.) “I don’t even know how to describe it—it was, like, all dirt,” hair designer Nina Paskowitz recalled. “There were a couple of little sheds on the property, a couple of little housing things, and that’s it.” By the time various departments—makeup, editing, design—moved to Playa Vista, they were working off outline plot points and concept art. There was still no locked script. The creative staff had plenty of work, but their isolation also fostered a party atmosphere. Art director Dave Klassen and production designer Michael Riva, who had also collaborated with Jon Favreau on his 2005 film Zathura: A Space Adventure, hosted cocktail hours that soon became legendary. “Martinis, beer, whatever,” Stephen Platt reminisced. “It was great because it’s a morale thing, right?”