Excel­lent, another fine actor con­firmed for Iron Man 2. Dead­line Hol­ly­wood Daily has con­firmed the news that Mickey Rourke shall appear in the Iron Man sequel — with a quote sig­nif­i­cantly higher than the low $250k we’d pre­vi­ously reported (and the cause of the cast­ing wor­ries). This news is par­tic­u­larly encour­ag­ing given Rourke’s recent com­ments — “Right now, we’re not doing Iron Man 2.”

I just heard that ICM has scored its sec­ond cast­ing deal for Marvel’s Iron Man 2. After at first being low-balled by the stu­dio to the tune of $250K, Rourke has signed on for the role of the Russ­ian vil­lain in the sequel after his agent David Unger got the quote up to a “sig­nif­i­cant” level despite this pun­ish­ing eco­nomic cli­mate where the stu­dios are tak­ing advan­tage of tal­ent. (No won­der Mickey kept thank­ing Unger so pro­fusely in accep­tance speeches for the BAFTA, Golden Globes, Spirit, and other awards.) But don’t expect Mar­vel to con­firm any of this: they won’t until all the i’s are dot­ted and t’s crossed on the con­tracts. I can also tell you that Sony was con­sid­er­ing hir­ing Mickey to play the vil­lain in Spider-Man 4.

Update: Vari­ety has added that Rourke will play Whiplash per­haps with some ele­ments of Crim­son Dynamo. Rourke has also met with Justin Ther­oux and Jon Favreau and has had some involve­ment in his character’s development.

Next up — a Black Widow cast­ing announcement?