The Iron Patriot armor makes sense for a movie villain but they can't use Norman as he is attached to Sony. I'm fine with some other person being in the suit as long as the story is well written.

More info regarding IM 3.
Popular Asians - Fan Bingbing Starring in "Iron Man 3"; Andy Lau May Not be in Movie

Hope The villains in im 3 have better and longer fight scenes then IM 2

No kidding Whiplash great villain but def. short lived.

Yahoo has an article on this too, "new Iron Man villain photos".

Spotted on Set | Photo Gallery - Yahoo! Movies

"Eric Savin, one of the villains of "Iron Man 3." In the comics, Savin is a soldier who is gravely injured in a land mine explosion and reanimated as a cyborg called Coldblood-7. It looks like the movie merges his character from the books with the Iron Patriot armor (which was worn by Spider-Man's nemesis Norman Osborn, aka the Green Goblin)."

So I'm guessing we can count on Coldblood becoming the new Iron Patriot in the comics in summer of 2013, eh?

But honestly...I'm really starting to get confused and worried as to just where this film is going and how it's going to get there without being a muddled mess.

Read my mind, bro.

Didn't they mash up a couple of villains to make their own version of Whiplash in IM2? It seems like they're doing that here with Coldblood/IP in IM3.

I third that, but let's be patient and hope for the best....

I cannot wait to get IM3 Iron Patriot Figures.

Considering they will most likely reuse Molds from IM 1& 2 (as well as Avengers probably) then it probably be a little of each.

great,more repaints of ironman 2 figures.

Haha my thoughts exactly!

Oh WOW!!! the actor who plays the Iron Patriot, James Badge Dale, is someone I know personally. What a fucking trip!!!!!!!! He was in an indie film written and directed by my great friend Larry Golin. The film is called 'Cross Bronx.' Badge is such a great guy too so I am soooo happy for him. Amazing actor. Very intense. You guys will love him!!! WOW. I'm calling Larry now. Sooooo coool!!!

Jerry Ferrara of 'Entourage' fame was also in Cross Bronx, along w Dania Ramirez who was in X-Men. A great cast of young talented actors that I had the opportunity to hang out with back in the day before they became stars.

Congrats Badge!!!

Dude, that's sick! Can you tell him that I'm making an action figure of his armor right now? TIA! :D

I was sad to find willem dafoe isn't playing him, but that would be ridiculous

my opioions so far
1 mandarin yes :D (wanted a ML one for ages espically face-off) but movie style with ben kingsley !!!
2 iron patiort :L , okay i have no idea about this character apart from its got norman osborn in the suit... what happened to classic foes ? like grey gargoyle, blizzard , black lash /whiplash ! oh wait he's dead ... Whirlwind , Hypnotia and titanium man :) (animated series of ironman) C'mon im pretty sure iron patiort is a good / bad villian (i seriously have no idea) but im kinda getting tried now of seeing guys with suits pop out of nowhere espically with iron man suits (warmachine is an expection) they have repeated this twice ! Iron man - obidah stane takes ironmans suit + arc, builds a suit ... Iron man 2 - Justin hammer recieves technology from Rhodey and evil guy whiplash takes some specs apart from arc and builds suit. It seems the best they can come with is an evil guy taking the suit from tony and building their own suit. So you can see story wise its been repeated again just with a different villian. As a result i hope iron patriot doesnt last that long in the movie harsh perhaps, but i think this is mandarins story so for once apart from rhodey's and tony's suits ... scrap'em !!! bring in some other villians like blizzard , and whirlwind they have some special stuff, espically bad taste in fanshion.

I was kind of hoping for a villain who DIDN'T have some sort of comparable armor. The Mandarin is cool, if it's done right. But since Kingsly is playing the part, I'm sure we won't be seeing much Mandarin suits throughout.

They have already stated they are "modernizing" the character due to Chinese sensitivity. They don't want to insult anyone and Mandarin's classic outfit is pretty stereotypical Chinese. I read somewhere he will be more of a business man so we will probably see him in business atire mainly. Which would be cool to get a Marvel figure besides Prof X in the suit for head swaps.

Ok, I guess I can see that, so long as he actually uses the powers of the ten rings in some sort of fashion. Not sure how they can play that off as realistic though. Maybe he only has one ring that can manipulate people's minds and that's how he becomes successful. And in this story he goes after Tony.

I think magical artifacts are a lot easier to work with in the Marvel Movie-verse, since they've already introduced it with Thor and the Cosmic Cube. So I don't see any reason why they couldn't do all 10 rings (or some variant of them).

As for guys in suits being the Iron Man villains - that's kind of Tony's schtick. Most of the major ones he fights are armor-based villains, unless it's an Avengers or someone else's book.

I think IP one of the two will play a lesser part in this movie setting up im4 with the other.
Either way there will be a third villan. Someone for IP to come in and stop to look like a hero to everyone.

Second that, better than having a Galactus that's for sure! I just hope they don't defeat the villain so easily...

I had my hopes for mandarin or going into Extremis arc but I still can't wrap my head around what they pulled out.

The only thing that would draw me into this is the story alone. I think since in IM2, the senator wanted the IM armor and Rhodes also brought them the mark II, they created their own armor which obviously is the iron patriot. I think in IM3, since tony and avengers destroyed new York, the senator doesn't want stark to be the one to bear the armor. Now the synopsis for IM3 is they want to remove tony from all his toys and put him in a desperate situation, I believe they are going to raid his home and armory due to the events in avengers and they are going to appoint cold blood as the iron patriot to take over. Then lalalala tony stark fights his way back as iron patriot shows his true colors and stark saves us all again