John Debney (and Tom Morello) talk Iron Man 2 (2010)

It’s hard to create a sequel that lives up to the awesomeness that was the original Iron Man film, but Iron Man 2 did a pretty good job. The film follows Tony Stark after he publicly reveals that he is Iron Man to the world.

See, as it turns out, the palladium in the arc reactor that’s keeping Tony alive is also slowly killing him, so he begins to live life very recklessly (as he doesn’t have much time to live), to the consternation of Pepper Potts and James Rhodes, who have no idea that Tony is slowly dying. But there are other problems: Ivan Vanko, determined to seek vengeance on Stark, builds his own arc reactor and sets out to kill him. (This is also the film that introduces Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow) to the MCU.

Stark is also under increasing pressure to sell the designs of his Iron Man suits to the government, but he is unwilling to do so. Everything comes to a head when Tony gets drunk at a birthday party while wearing his Mark IV armor. Rhodes dons the Mark II prototype and the two fight to a stalemate which ends with Rhodes flying off with the armor to give to the Air Force. At the same time, rival Justin Hammer has enlisted Vanko to build his own set of armored suits (which he passes off as his own work), not realizing that Vanko has sabotaged them so that they can be remotely controlled by him. It’s up to Tony to stop Vanko once and for all!

While the film’s score features a healthy selection of rock songs (including two from AC/DC), the orchestral score was composed by John Debney and Tom Morello. The above video featurette details how Debney collaborated with Morello to create the score for the film.

Some have criticized the MCU for not having a “consistent” sound, which is to be expected since multiple composers have been employed to score these films, but I think each composer puts their own unique twist to each installment of the MCU, and Iron Man 2 is no exception. I hope you enjoy this behind the scenes look at the making of this film’s score.

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