Jesus, when you see the disaster job Peter Berg and Louis Letterier have done with The Incredible Hulk and Hancock this Summer… two movies which won’t perform anywhere near as well at the box office if sequels are (and it’s certainly not guaranteed) greenlit then it’s unsurprising that Marvel have quickly agreed to pay Jon Favreau’s slightly increased wage demands over Iron Man 2.

And after a origin film which has grossed over $550 million worldwide and a series which will live for a long time and make several more millions for them, you can hardly say he hasn’t deserved it.

The news comes from Nikki Finke…

It’s not officially announced yet, but I’m told that Marvel Studios and Iron Man director Jon Favreau have reached a deal for him to helm the sequel, due out in 2010.

Jon Favreau did a quite wonderful job with Iron Man and unlike Letterier and Berg - here is a guy who loves this genre, completely gets the Tony Stark character (you know, ten years ago Favreau could have played Stark) and had shown clear interest in sequels and spin-off’s including a mega blockbuster Avengers movie.

Losing Favreau now would have been the kind of jolt of losing Richard Donner on Superman II. Thankfully that hasn’t happened.