‘Men In Black 3′ took the number one spot at the box office last weekend, and there’s even a part in it where Will Smith’s Agent J totally smack talks schwarma! Take THAT Avengers!

Nevertheless, we’re in the “here comes Prometheus’ part of the summer where Kristen Stewart is going to try to squeeze a few good Box Office days before the other, more exciting Charlize Theron performance comes out (she bathes in lotion in SWATH, does naked pushups in Prometheus…I’m for naked pushups).

As all this goes on, ‘Iron Man 3′ continues to film in Wilmington, under Shane Black and his small army of writers. It’s a huge tech-James-Bond-thriller from what we’ve hearing and they made the interesting choice to film outside the lot yesterday. The production took to the Cape Fear Club and security locked everything down so no one got any photos of the military and secret service costumed actors on set.

Some crew member opened his mouth and said that Mandarin is the villain and had “twins” who did his dirty work for him.

Of course, that got me a bit pissy, because that’s not exactly true.

Here’s what we can CONFIRM as true (and not from some guy working security on an off-lot shoot): The Mandarin (as played by Ben Kingsley) is a villain in the ‘Iron Man 3,’ but he’s more a veiled threat as a silent partner to Guy Pearce’s Aldrich Killian. Killian is the man inventing Extremis and putting it into his “Extremis army” of multiple super-powered individuals.

Still no word on exactly how many Extremis soldiers we’ll see, but I’m sticking to my theory that the Coldblood-7 and Firepower casting will not be traditional comics versions of those characters, but instead names they’ve given to Extremis soldiers.

While we’re talking ‘Iron Man 3,’ you might recall our last scoop involved the addition of William Sadler to the cast. We’ve since contacted both Sadler’s reps as well as Marvel. The official word: “No Comment.”

HELLS YEAH, Sadler’s in the movie.

Remember when we were all like: “Loki is the villain in the Avengers!” and then Marvel AND Tom Hiddleston both said: “No, Loki is not in the Avengers?” Well, look for Marvel to ride that “Mandarin is NOT in ‘Iron Man 3′” line for a bit longer. I’m not sure what to think of this “Mandarin has evil twins” thing, but I’m guessing that’s some on-set guy getting a bit confused.

We are CONFIRMing though, outside of Marvel official channels, so despite denials, prepare to see Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin in ‘Iron Man 3.’ He may not be in it as much as we’re expecting, because The Mandarin might survive ‘Iron Man 3′ to feed into something like ‘Avengers 2.’

Recapping!

- CONFIRM: The Mandarin is played by Ben Kingsley and a villain in the movie despite Marvel’s continued insistence that he’s not.
- SCOOP: Guy Pearce’s Killian is the primary villain for Iron Man 3 with the Mandarin as a silent partnet/backer in the Extremis scheme.
- NO DENIAL on the addition of William Sadler to the cast

(He’s one bad-ass-mother-SHUTYOMOUTH) Talkin’ Bout Marvel:

@Agent_M on twitter tweeted a photo of his inbox of various Marvel movie folders, but blurred two. Assuming this is alphabetical order, it would seem to discount Ant-Man. Dr. Strange? Deadpool? First one comes alphabetically before Ghost Rider 2. Second one comes after: Runaways? Luke Cage? Inhumans?

This is fun!