Speaking with the LA Times Favreau said:

“I want it to be completely self-contained because a lot is going to happen between now and the next chapter. You’ve got ‘Thor,’ you’ve got ‘Captain America‘ and you’ve got ‘Avengers.’ I don’t know how all of that is going to impact this little handmade story of ours that we’ve been doing over the last two films.“

Marvel is to blame for the lack of cliffhanger, but given their overall plans of linking all of the Marvel Universe movies in some manner I think we can let it slide. From the sounds of things we’ll have a few years before another Iron Man movie, while the other marvel projects come out so no cliffhanger isn’t really a bad thing anyway, given everyone’s short memory and attention span.

Although it will lack a cliffhanger Favreau said there will be lots of storylines they could continue in a future movie.

“You want to leave some things open, you know, to be like a food cache for them to set things up that can be paid off later and lean toward where we think things are going,” Favreau said. “But we can’t leave it like ‘Empire’ where you’re waiting to see it resolved. It’s not a cliffhanger. We had to tuck this whole story in. And that be said, we had like eight different storylines going and opened up the door, especially with both the good guys and the bad guys, for a larger story to be told. That’s just responsible filmmaking. But if you just watch this movie, it’s self-contained. It’s not like ‘Two Towers.’ “

8 storylines! This movie is going to be much more complicated than the AC/DC laced trailers have indicated. Sounds like plenty of surprises are still in store, and I for one can’t wait. Iron Man 2 opens May 7th.