Looks like all that money is headed straight for the effects department.

Yesterday, principle photography on Iron Man 3 began, and with it came word from Latino-Review (via CBM) of an increase in the budget from $140 million to $200 million.

Word on the e-street is that IM3 was budgeted for $140 million in production costs pre-Avengers. Then The Avengers did gangbusters and rather than count their crossover movies as separate, Marvel has decided The Avengers raised the bar for ALL Marvel movies. Namely, Shane Black and the IM3 crew aren’t being asked to deliver a better Iron Man movie but THE BEST Marvel movie hands down.

How could Disney and Marvel make this new doctrine more possible? I hear they’ve upped the budget from $140 to $200 million. And extra sixty million dollars can go a long way (remember how the last stuff done on Green Lantern was the best stuff done on Green Lantern?).

An Iron Man 3 better than The Avengers? Iron Man 2‘s budget was estimated to be around $200 million and that didn’t immediately throw it into “better than The Avengers” territory. Don’t forget, Shane Black said that Iron Man 3 was going to work because they were “putting Tony Stark back in the cave.” To us, it seems like a pretty expensive cave.

Let’s just hope that some of the $60 million will go towards script tailoring, we’re not sure that the standalone Iron Man franchise can take any more blows. It is, after all, the first test of what Marvel is capable of doing post-Avengers.