You didn't expect them to stop at two movies, did ya? In a move that isn't all that surprising, Disney has brokered a deal with Paramount to acquire the rights for Marvel's Iron Man 3 and The Avengers. In doing so, Disney immediately turned around and announced a release date for Iron Man 3: May 13th, 2013. Here's hoping 13 turns out to be a lucky number this time around… Iron Man

You may recall that Disney acquired Marvel last year, however multiple studios still held the film rights to some of Marvel's characters, like the X-Men and Fantastic Four (Fox) and Spider-Man (Sony). Once Marvel developed their own production house, they struck a five-year distribution deal with Paramount which covered titles like Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Avengers. Disney was all set to honor that and take over as the distributor once those films were released, however they decided that they desperately wanted Iron Man 3 and The Avengers so that they could work on integrating those properties across various platforms now instead of waiting two years.
What we don't know, however, is who will direct Iron Man 3 and what it will be about. Chances are what happens in The Avengers will dictate where Tony Stark is when we next catch up with him. In the meantime, word is Jon Favreau didn't have such a great time making Iron Man 2, and so I wouldn't expect the guy to return for part three. But 2013 is still a ways off, so let's not jump to any conclusions just yet.
Are you excited for Iron Man 3? If Jon Favreau doesn't direct, who should?