The U.S. military has reportedly asked a

movie special-effects master to aid in the creation of its latest project. You read that right: The military is getting help from Hollywood. What could possibly bring together these two strange bedfellows? Iron Man, of course.

The military is currently working on creating its own version of the Marvel superhero's suit for use in actual combat. We knew that already. What we didn't know is that Legacy Effects, the company responsible for the creation of the suits for Iron Man, Robocop and The Terminator on the big screen, is giving the government a hand.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the special effects company and others will be helping the military in the creation of the exoskeleton for Project TALOS (Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit). Others in the mix include Ekso Bionics, a company that created an exoskeleton that allows paraplegics to walk, and a group of Canadian researchers studying how sumo wrestlers can fight despite their substantial weight.

Currently, there's no real-world equivalent to Stark's light chest-mounted arc reactor, which means soldiers will need to tote around a lot of (heavy) power. TALOS is expected to weigh in at around 400 lbs.; the batteries to keep it up and running account for 365 of those. The hope is that Legacy and the others can lend their expertise to the design of the suit, ultimately helping to create something a solider could actually wear and, you know, fight in.

Legacy will be printing a prototype of the suit from the same 3D printer it used to create Robert Downey Jr.'s for the film. Of course, building a suit for the movies is a lot different than creating one that might sustain actual gunfire. The Pentagon's Special Operations Command has already poured about $10 million into the project, and we're still a ways off from something that could actually be used in combat. Is Hollywood the missing piece of the R&D puzzle? We'll just have to wait and see.

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