Warren Ellis’ popular Extremis Iron Man mini-series will officially be the basis for much of the Iron Man 3 story. Variety has reported that Rebecca Hall (The Town) has been cast as the female lead in the movie, and the character is described as being “a scientist who plays a pivotal role in the creation of a nanotechnology, known as Extremis, that winds up being sold to terrorists.” Those terrorists are rumored to be the Nine Rings, which would be part of a larger terrorist organization known as The Mandarin and led by Ben Kingsley.

So the movie looks to combine the nanite storyline (where Tony becomes bonded to the suit) and The Mandarin. Hopefully it’ll work out a bit better than Iron Man 2 did, and hopefully War Machine will be back. It’d be awesome if Marvel decided to blow fanboy minds and include Tony Stark’s new science buddy Bruce Banner for some Hulk action at one point…but that probably won’t happen.