Earlier this month, we brought you the news when Ben Kingsley (Ender’s Game) joined the cast of Marvel Studios forthcoming, third installment of the Iron Man franchise as one of the Shane Black directed film’s villains.

Prior to that, we brought you a rumor about the storyline for Iron Man 3 and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) coming in contact with Extremis, the military nanotechnology version of the Super-Soldier Serum created by Dr. Abraham Erskine that turned the meek Steve Rogers into the heroic Captain America.

In the Extremis story arc penned by Warren Ellis, the Extremis nanobots are first used by terrorists and later by Stark to enhance his Iron Man suit and give him additional powers and control over the suit. That rumor also included the tidbit that Iron Man 3 would feature multiple villains.

Now, Variety reports that Guy Pearce (Prometheus, Lockout) has now joined the cast of the film as as geneticist Aldrich Killian, creator of the Extremis tech. The trade confirms that the plot will borrow elements from Ellis’ Extremis series, and focuses heavily on the spread of a virus through nanotechnology.

In the comics, Killian co-creates the Extremis technology that Iron Man adopts after Killian sells it to terrorists.

Iron Man 3 is slated to hit theaters on May 3rd, 2013.