According to Deadline Hollywood Daily, Iron Man gets $104M domestic, $97M foreign, which blows away studio projections and makes it the second biggest non-sequel 3-day opening (after Spider-Man).
Marvel self-financed. Paramount is just picking up a cut for distribution.
Meanwhile, the JLA movie is dead at Warner Bros. That's the peril of being co-owned with a studio; you can't shop a project around. DC's movie future may depend on The Dark Knight, because if it doesn't score, say, an $80M first weekend, Warner may simply decide not to make any more superhero comic movies.
Posted by Greg at May 4, 2008 2:26 PM
This is good news for Iron Man and Marvel and, dare I say it, the fans. With Marvel doing their own movies, we can now finally see fun cross-over events hinted at in the post-credit scene (I assume folks on here would stay past credits, right?).
This movie was wonderful and a good time for all. I am very happy it is doing well and hope to see it continue to do so until it is killed by Indiana Jones in a few weeks.
I was wondering, now that Marvel is producing its own stuff, will it be able to do previously released characters like the X-Men or Fantastic Four? Are those forbidden because of ties to previous studios? I am not worried as the pipeline for Marvel already looks to be lively over the next couple of years but it would be nice to see a proper (meaning "good") FF movie or a Spidey to take away the sting of the 3rd one. Or is that stink? Either way...
It's amazing how spectacularly bad Warners seems to be about getting movies made. Marvel can at least get mediocre movies made of many of its B and C list characters and the only peep ever coming from the DC stable is Superman and Batman over and over again.
What Marvel can and can't do depends on its licenses with other studios. If its contract with Fox gave Fox the right to do 3 X-Men movies and nothing more, then Marvel can have Wolverine show up in the next movie it makes. On the other hand, if the contract with Fox gives the studio exclusive right to make movies featuring the X-Men and all related characters through the year 2017, then Marvel can't use Wolverine in any non-Fox movies (unless it gets a waiver of some sort from Fox).
Of course, if the rights aren't clear, they could always replace Wolverine with H.E.R.B.I.E.
"I am the best there is at what I do, and what I do is run the Baxter Building systems!"