The OtherArena

Steve Yohe · Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 11:41 pm Post subject: IRON MAN

Saw Iron Man tonight. It's great. **** Funny & fun. Go! Do not leave until after the credits.--Yohe

Jeremy Billones · Joined: 07 Aug 2006 Posts: 523 Location: Alexandria, VA

Is there anyone who *sometimes* leaves before the credits?

I figure the people who do are gonna do it anyway, and those of us
who don't won't anyway. (Unless I *really* have to go to the
bathroom, of course.)

So far everybody except David Poland has fallen all over themselves
to praise the film. Given the atriocious ad campaign since the first
trailer, that's pleasantly surprising.

Steve Yohe · Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 2:56 pm Post subject: Credits

If I respect a movie, even if it doesn't really work, I will stay until the end of the credits. You see real movie people doing this on the west side of LA, but in Montebello people run for the exist like its a Dodger game. My wife hates sitting thru them & the guys cleaning up are pissed... but its a sign of disrespect for me to leave. If I liked the movie, I enjoyed myself & I don't want to leave.

I think the putting of major plot point at the end of them is cool. Your seeing it more & more.---Yohe

Steve Yohe · Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 1:54 pm Post subject:

Iron Man made 5.5 million on Thursday and 35.5 million on Friday. Everyone is going to see it before its done. A major hit.---Yohe

jdw · Site Admin Joined: 01 Sep 2005 Posts: 17233

Big opening weekend, but it's going to fall off huge next week. People have been waiting for a Big Movie to go to, and this was it. Now comes the wave of movies.

For reference, here's the opening day of the "early May" box office leaders:

$23,381,875 The Mummy Returns (05/04/01)
$39,406,872 Spider-Man (05/03/02)
$31,247,979 X2: X-Men United (05/02/03)
$19,519,430 Van Helsing (05/07/04)
$7,147,738 Kingdon of Heaven (05/06/06)
$16,632,157 Mission Impossible III (05/05/06)
$59,841,919 Spider-Man 3 (05/04/07)
$32,500,000 Iron Man (05/02/08)

Spidey made $150M on its opening weekend, then capped out at $336.5M.

I have a feeling that Iron Man should go past $200M, but $300M is going to be a struggle.

Coming up:

05/09/08 Speed Racer
05/16/08 The Chronicles of Narnia II
05/23/08 Indiana Jones IV

It's *possible* that Speed Race will bomb. Entirely possible.

But by 05/16/08, Iron Man is going to get killed. But 05/23/08 when Indy comes out, Iron Man will be looking for table scraps.

With the way the summer lays out, to get to $300M it really needed a weekend closer to $125M+. It isn't going to get any Summertime monster weekday numbers, nor is it going to have long legs to Memorial day (05/26 when Indy and Narnia are going to dominate).

I suspect it will do the $215M to $234M that X-Men II and X-Men III did.

Indy will do $300M. Narnia has a *chance* to do $300M.

John

Jeremy Billones · Joined: 07 Aug 2006 Posts: 523 Location: Alexandria, VA

I noticed in the credits that they took a still photo of Jeff Bridges from the film "Tucker" and gave them credit for it. Cute :)

Steve Yohe · Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 1:40 pm Post subject:

MAJOR SPOILER...OK!!!!!!!!!

My problem with the last scene is that, as far as I know & I could be wrong, there were no black squad leaders in WWII leading a group of white commandos. I don't think the army was integrated until after the war.

So putting Samuel Jackson in the part takes away the whole history of the character. To me it just seems to be an attempt by Jackson to take back the #1 lifetime box office position from Ford. Something he doesn't deserve but wants. He wanted to be in the Indy Jones movie too.---Yohe

Steve Yohe · Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 1:50 pm Post subject:

People wanted to see a "good" big movie & Iron Man is that. So 214 million is America adds up to 440 world wide so thats great. Every movie MARVEL makes in the future will draw more because this one was came thru with the goods.---Yohe

Regan · Joined: 02 Aug 2006 Posts: 148

RE: Spoiler and Sam

While that's true about the original Fury, there's two things to keep in mind.

One, they're likely using the standard floating timeline, and there's no way the Nick Fury in the present films will be portrayed as having fought in WWII. If anything, maybe Vietnam, but even that is likely a little too far away now.

Two, the Nick Fury of the Ultimate Marvel line (essentially a simpler refresh of the Marvel Universe) is not only black, but his appearance was based on Sam Jackson's look, with his approval.

Plus the whole idea of them making their films exist in a self-contained Marvel Universe makes me giddy.

Kevin

Kevin Tyler · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 68 Location: Moncton, NB

Regan · Joined: 02 Aug 2006 Posts: 148

If Harvey Dent can change from Billy Dee Williams to Tommy Lee Jones to Aaron E. Eckhart between the 89 and 2008, I'm okay with the upgrade to Jackson from the Hoff.

Kevin

(Edited jokey middle name to actual middle initial. Hell, if reality is willing to play along, why can't I?)

Bob Morris · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 2884 Location: New Mexico

Iron Man got $50 million in its second weekend. It more than doubled Speed Racer's opening weekend.

While I don't see Iron Man doing that to Indiana Jones or Narnia in their opening weekends, it sure looks like word of mouth and highly favorable reviews from most critics could make Iron Man the surprise hit of the summer box office season.

Its total gross is $177 million. I'd say its chances of reaching $300 million are looking better.

Steve Yohe · Posted: Tue May 26, 2020 11:29 pm Post subject:

I'll bump this one too. It was the beginning of the Marvel films.--Yohe

jdw · Site Admin Joined: 01 Sep 2005 Posts: 17233

It had better legs than I expected.

Speed Racer was a massive bomb. Prince Caspian also massive under-performed The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, to the tune of half the box office. Indy IV opened at $100M+ back when that was still a big number, and got over $300M... but people didn't really like it much, and $300M wasn't all that great.

Things both broke right for Iron Man that summer, and it was also a good fun movie. Really something of a phenom. Looking back at Phase 1 of the MCU, nothing else made it to even $200M other than IM1 and IM2, then the Avengers explosion. It wasn't until Guardians of the Galaxy that there was another $300M+ movie in the MCU other than the three IM's and Avengers 1 & 2. If we treat Civil War as Avengers 2.5, the $300M movies were:

2008 IM
2010 IM2
2013 IM3
2014 GotG
2017 GotG2
2017 Spidey Homecoming
2017 Thor3
2018 Black Panther
2019 Captain Marvel
2019 Spidey Far From Home

The Iron Man movies were far ahead of the non-Avengers movies until GotG came along. It really wasn't until 2017 when the non-Avengers movies started popping $300M regularly.

Really ahead of the curve.