That's a great idea regarding House of Cards, I've been meaning to watch that and haven't gotten around to it. Even if I can't find any scenes to use, at least now I have an excuse to catch up on it haha. Ideally though, I would love to cut out Howard (although I actually prefer his version of the character).

Jeff Bridges, so far, remains. Although I'm striving to turn him into more of a secondary antagonist: A distraction from the overarching Ten Rings/Mandarin plot. Some of his scenes will be cut for the sake of brevity, for instance, he will less involved in Tony's personal life.

Here's my idea regarding Rhodey getting the suit: There is a scene in IM2 where he confronts Tony about not having to "do this whole gunslinger act on [his] own." I will cut the remainder of the scene, fade to black, and follow that scene with Rhodey arriving at the Air Force base in the Mark 2. Since most of main Iron Man 2 plot will be excised, we can skip all of the animosity that occurs between the two later.