Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man 2 Co-star Just Gave Fans a Brutal Wake-Up Call

Well, this is not the usual holiday greeting. Mickey Rourke popped up with a Christmas Day video warning everyone in his orbit about a mystery filmmaker named Chris, claimed this guy is trying to make a Mickey Rourke biopic without permission, then punctuated it with a very R-rated instruction. And yes, the whole thing was as confusing as it sounds.

The Christmas video, in his own words

Rourke said he wanted to alert friends, colleagues, directors, basically anyone he has worked with lately, that someone named Chris is approaching people about a biopic. He made it clear he has not signed off on any such project and told people not to participate.

If some guy named Chris comes up to you and says, 'I am doing a story on Mickey,' tell him to go f**k himself.

He wrapped the warning by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. A clip of the message made the rounds on social media on Dec. 25, with plenty of viewers saying he looked unrecognizable and a lot of people asking what, exactly, he was talking about.

Quick MCU refresher (and why he is still salty)

If you are wondering why Rourke tends to have blunt things to say about big franchises: he played Ivan Vanko/Whiplash in Iron Man 2. Later, on Late Night with Seth Meyers, he said he is not a Marvel fan and complained that most of what he did for that movie ended up on the cutting room floor.

The recent trouble list

• UK Celebrity Big Brother: Rourke told JoJo Siwa, who is openly gay, that if he stayed longer than four days in the house she would not be gay anymore. She told him she was in a happy relationship.
• Later, in a conversation with Love Island alum Chris Hughes, Rourke said he was going to vote the lesbian out quickly. Siwa overheard, called that homophobic if it was his reasoning, and Rourke used a slur. The show warned him.
• He apologized to Siwa afterward, but clashes continued with other housemates, including Donna Preston, Ella Rae Wise, and Patsy Palmer.
• A couple of days after the homophobic remarks, he was removed from the house for threatening and aggressive behavior toward Hughes.
• Separately, Bella Thorne accused Rourke of misconduct on the set of the 2020 thriller Girl. On Instagram and later in a long post on X, she alleged a scene called for him to use a metal grinder on her kneecap, but he instead pressed it into her genitals through her jeans, leaving bruises on her pelvic bone. Thorne called it one of the worst experiences of her career and said he made many gross demands to humiliate her in front of the crew. She claimed she had to beg him to finish the job after he shouted at producers.

Meanwhile: biopic rumors are bubbling

Despite all that, Rourke has been in the mix for a couple of high-profile music biopics. Earlier this month, reports said he is in discussions to play an older Ozzy Osbourne and is also being considered for a Johnny Cash project. The chatter started about nine months after the Big Brother mess.

An industry insider painted a picture of U.S. producers either not tracking the UK controversy or not caring, and still betting on a late-career showcase for him:

Producers here do not even know about the Celebrity Big Brother thing. Mickey is golden in the States. This town also loves an underdog, and movie bosses think Mickey still has an Oscar-worthy performance they can wring out of him.

The same source said scripts for both projects are in development and that the Ozzy film aims to cover his final days leading up to that Villa Park show, with Rourke ideally tapping into the same grit he showed in The Wrestler. According to the rumor mill, Amazon-MGM Studios and Apple are interested.

Where this leaves the Christmas message

So we have Rourke warning everyone off a supposed unauthorized biopic, ending with a holiday greeting, while he is also reportedly being courted for other biopics. Odd? Absolutely. Clear? Not really. If a real filmmaker named Chris is out there shopping a Mickey Rourke story, Rourke wants the industry to slam the door.

What do you make of that video? Drop your take below.