For reasons that make no sense to anybody, Jon Favreau was not signed up to direct Iron Man 2 the instant it opened, to great critical and financial success. That situation has now been rectified, according to Nikki Finke of Deadline Hollywood Daily.
Finke says that Favreau has been offered a "much richer" deal than he received on the first film, but she's not particularly complimentary of the director. You can read the full article here.
This news probably won't surprise anyone, since Favreau did a bang up job for fans and critics. Getting him back to direct a sequel is a no-brainer. The question now is, when will the film go before cameras? It's already got a release date April 30, 2010. But with today's news that Robert Downey Jr will star as Sherlock Holmes for Guy Ritchie, that really reduces the window for actually getting the film made. We'd hate to see this rushed and fail to live up to the potential that the first showed.