Iron Man 2 -- and 3? Downey talks!

Caught on the phone in Paris the week before Iron Man exploded on screens with a worldwide opening weekend take of $200 million-plus, Robert Downey Jr. was already talking about sequels, about the kick he got playing the playboy industrialist superhero in the titanium flying suit.

"It's really weird, it’s very strange how engaging it is, and Jon [Favreau, the director] and I find ourselves sitting around dreaming up storylines for making a couple more of these," Downey says. (And this is before Marvel Entertainment announced that there would, indeed, be an Iron Man sequel.) "And you see the pitfalls, too, you see what historically happens: Usually, the first one’s the best one, the second one goes `bigger,' and the third one falls apart.

"So, that, to me, would be the real Zen of it -- it would be to actually make three movies that stood up on their own."