The newest Iron Man 2 news to come out in the past weeks was very simple, but unforeseen and briefly shocking reality that Terrance Howard has been replaced as Jim Rhodes/War Machine by Don Cheadle.

Iron Man 2, thus far, has been a lot of contracts signed or withheld out of mystery (like Marvel taking forever to start Favreau on a sequel), and this mystery is no different.

Luckily, we think we know what happened now…

From EW:

Hollywood insiders believe the exit stems from Terrence Howard’s difficult behavior on the set of Iron Man. But those with intimate knowledge of the situation suggest a far more dramatic backstory: Howard was the first actor signed to the film and, on top of that, was the highest-paid. That’s right: more than Gwyneth Paltrow. More than Jeff Bridges. More than Robert Downey Jr. And once the project fully came together, it was too late to renegotiate his deal. It didn’t help that, according to one source, Favreau and his producers were ultimately unhappy with Howard’s performance, and spent a lot of time cutting and reshooting his scenes. (Favreau could not be reached for comment, while Howard’s publicist says: ”Terrence had a tremendous experience working on Iron Man.”)

Got that? Terrance Howard was being his usual crazy self on set, didn’t turn in a good performance, ye was getting paid more than everyone else.

So, by the time Justin Theroux started working on the story for Iron Man 2, Favreau was ready to cut a lot of Howard’s part. This resulted in a drastically reduced offer (sources say between a 50% and 80% reduction) that shocked Howard’s reps, who were expecting as much money the second time around. What they got was an offer similar to the other supporting Iron Man characters.

What makes the hole deeper is that Marvel and Favreau apparently never told Howard that they were unhappy with his performance, so out of left field comes an offer that’s much lower.

We still don’t know who blinked first: team Howard or Marvel, but we do know Marvel was quick to scoop up Don Cheadle, possibly even quick enough to see Rhodes and War Machine’s role increase in Iron Man 2.

That’s dirty Hollywood for you, right there.