In April 2011, a splash screen appeared on the band's website, that contained a distorted Autobot image and a snippet from "Iridescent" (this is no longer available).

A few days later, Mike Shinoda, one of the band's lead vocalists, confirmed that the song will be the fourth single from A Thousand Suns.

Shinoda decided to put "Iridescent" in the film due to the fact it was a fan favorite and called it a "natural fit", despite the song not being an "in-your-face" kind of tune.

It appears multiple times, primarily its synth and piano debut, modified to fit the tone of the scenes in which they are featured.

Some instruments' parts are removed or added for instance, drum beats are added at the beginning which were not present in the album version, the third chorus sung by all six members is cut and directly leads to the bridge "Let it go" and to the fourth final chorus with a part of the piano cut shorter.

The runner up was Ashkan Harati from Belgium while the other two finalists were Sanja Grbic from Serbia and Matthew Johnson from the United States.

In an interview with MTV, Mike Shinoda stated: "All I know about the concept is that Joe Hahn sent me an e-mail that said something about 'In the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king', or something like that.

And the next thing I know, I've got horns growing out of my shoulders, and I've got one blind eye, and I've got a white dog and a snake on a throne made of antlers.

[11] In an extended behind-the-scenes video, which was released on July 11, 2011, it was revealed that Shinoda was required to carry a diamond carpet python.

The video shows Mike Shinoda as a one-eyed king, with horns sticking out of his shoulders, ruling over the citizens of a post-apocalyptic land.

Hahn stated that "the video explores how human existence might be affected by the elements of Transformers robots and the threat of the Decepticons.