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SUNDAY AM UPDATE: Iron Man 2 didn’t break the big Hollywood 
record for opening day or one-day or even 3-day weekend. “Hey, it’s Iron Man, not Platinum Man,” one rival studio exec quipped in an email to me. But it did launch with an “A” Cinemascore and $133.6 million, placing at least the 5th and maybe even 4th all-time best grossing weekend. That beats Shrek 3′s $121.6M and possibly Pirates Of The Caribbean 3′s $135.6M. But not Twilight Saga 2: New Moon’s $142.8M, or Spider-Man 3‘s $151.1M, or The Dark Knight’s $158.4M.
This is the first Marvel film to be released since it was acquired by Disney. Distributor Paramount debuted IM2 in 4,380 North American theaters to $46.5M Saturday and $52.4M Friday, including $7.5 million in Thursday midnight shows at just under 3,000 locations. IM2 easily beat the original’s launch of $38.7M/$102.1M from 4,105 locations. But the sequel had reeled in the widest release in Hollywood history. IMAX logged a 3-day domestic total of $10.2M, or 8% of the film’s overall box office for an IMAX 2D opening weekend domestic record, passing Star Trek‘s $8.5M a year ago. (It also outgrossed 3D Avatar’s snow-impacted opening weekend of $9.5M.)
Kicking off the official summer movie season, IM2 already has earned $194M overseas from almost 60 territories where it opened before the U.S. and Canada, so that’s a $327M worldwide cume. Top grossing countries were Britain and Korea with $23M each. Here’s the Top 10:
1. Iron Man 2 (Marvel/Paramount) NEW [4,380 Runs]
Friday $52.4M, Saturday $46.5M, Weekend $133.6M, Cume $327M
2. Nightmare On Elm Street (New Line/WB) Week 2 [3,332 Runs]
Friday $3.2M, Saturday $3.7M, Weekend $9.1M (-72%), Cume $48.5M
3. How To Train Your Dragon (DWA/Par) Week 7 [3,003 Runs]
Friday $1.7M, Saturday $2.8M, Weekend $6.7M, Cume $201.0M
4. Date Night (Fox) Week 5 [2,734 Runs]
Friday $1.6M, Saturday $2.3M, Weekend $5.3M, Estimated Cume $80.8M
5. The Back Up Plan (CBS Films/Sony) Week 3 [3,003 Runs]
Friday $1.4M, Saturday $1.9M, Weekend $4.3M, Cume $29.4M
6. Furry Vengeance (Summit) Week 2 [3,002 Runs]
Friday $950K (-46%), Saturday $1.6M, Weekend $4.0M, Cume $11.6M
7. Clash Of The Titans (Warner Bros) Week 6 [2,157]
Friday $800K, Saturday $1.0M, Weekend $2.3M, Cume $157.8M
8. Death At A Funeral (Screen Gems/Sony) Week 4 [1,706 Runs]
Friday $575K, Saturday $895K, Weekend $2.1M, Cume $38.2M
9. The Losers (Dark Castle/Warner Bros) Week 3 [2,450 Runs]
Friday $600K, Saturday $755k, Weekend $1.8M, Cume $21.4M
10. Babies (Focus Features) NEW [534 Runs]
Friday $381K, Saturday $689K, Estimated Weekend $1.5M
WEDNESDAY 5:30 PM: Here’s one for the record books. When it arrives in theaters tonight at midnight, Iron Man 2 will have the widest initial release in Hollywood history with Paramount launching the Marvel comic book caper in 4,380 locations. The previous widest opening had been Warner Bros’ The Dark Knight with 4,366 venues. The latest predictions have the Jon Favreau-directed, Robert Downey Jr-starrer poised to make between $155 million to $160 million this 3-day opening weekend, possibly beating TDK‘s $158.4 million.
‘Iron Man 2′ Already Grosses $100M Overseas
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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I hate to say it, but Iron Man 2 sucked pretty hard. Like The Black Dahlia, it went into subplot overdrive and everything wound up getting watered down until it didn’t feel important. Rourke was wasted as Whiplash, only getting two very abbreviated fight scenes, and Scarlett Johansson was a non-entity. There were some positives; Sam Rockwell was wonderful as always, and the Bill O’Reilly scene will tear up YouTube pretty quick, but other than that, I really didn’t care for it. Too bad.
But either way, now that Iron Man 2 has been released, there aren’t many upcoming summer films that look particularly appealing… IM2 was all I was really hoping for this season.
PS: All the Iron Man news keeps people from talking about Nightmare on Elm Street’s eighty percent drop!
If you think IM2 is it for the summer then the either not a real movie fan or you just dont have your eyes open. With IM2 Being as awful as it was and i think me and you along with many of the post on here it was, AIRBENDER looks to be quantum leaps better than IM2. There also exist out a beast of a movie that go by the name of INCEPTION that awaits its july mega opening. If you havnt yet seen the the newest trailer for it or have been just sleeping under a rock you might want to check it out. I think your opinion of the summer not having anything particurly interesting to offer will change very quickly.
are there again people to see the shitty “clash of titans”?
i’m happy Iron Man 2 won’t beat TDK’s record becausee it’s far to be as good as TDK and the first movie was really better!but i hope it could beat “twilight” record(because the male acting is good in IM 2)
Every time I read these anonymous studio execs’ “quips,” I want to punch them in the genitals.
What, no snarky, sanctimonious stance on how “Babies” did bad business? You disappoint me, Nikki.
Anyone else think releasing this a week earlier overseas giving the bootleggers a chance to record and download hurt opening weekend grosses? I refuse to watch bootleg copies, but major file sharing sites started promoting “their” copies last weekend. Marvel and Paramount should’ve done a world wide rollout last week. Oh well, lesson learned.
Tonight’s #’s could be lowered even more (probably), 38 degrees in the midwest kept a lot of people home, snow flurries up north.
lol, people are wussies.
Alice was no slap job, post conversion is totally viable if done with the forethought of designing a movie for 3d, which Alice did and Clash did not. Simple as that. Lotta ignorance around 3d and a lot of fearful reactionary nonsense like ebert’s misguided and unpersuasive polemic. Of course iron man should have been in 3d. It’s a comic book movie. And all of you Luddites could have easily and happily seen it in 2d and snickered about those fools in the theater next door in their glasses with their retinal damage.
No, Iron Man 2 should NOT have been done in 3D. We’re being bombarded with 3D movies and the novelty was old BEFORE Avatar over-did the 3D nonsense.
Just take the time and effort you’d normally put into the 3D effects and focus it back into making A GOOD STORY. All the 3D and special effects in the world will not make a bad movie good (Avatar is a perfect example).
The best part of the movie was the Thor’s hammer
For me, it was Inception trailer.
I don’t know what you’re all talking about. 3D is amazing!! More money for the studios, an annoying/motion sick experience for the audience. I love it. I can’t wait for the studio to truly The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with their probably PG-13, watered down remake that will hopefully be 3D as well!!!
The dragon tattoo can’t fly towards your face and be very scary. Soooo coooolllll.
It will make a lot of $$$ but sadly the movie sucks balls.
Obviously kids are buying tickets to Iron Man 2 and sneaking into Kick-Ass. If actual audience numbers could be reported for Kick-Ass, it probably would have made over 500 million already. The movie is THAT good! The theater for Iron Man 2 was empty but the Kick-Ass theater was jammed, which just proves my thesis. Kick-Ass is the most successful movie of the new decade!
“The movie is THAT good! The theater for Iron Man 2 was empty but the Kick-Ass theater was jammed, which just proves my thesis.”
Hey fanboy, wipe the drool from your mouth. I know you liked your little kiddie dress-up role-play fantasy, but Kick-Ass wasn’t that good.
And one piece of anecdotal evidence “proves” your point? Not exactly on good terms with the scientific method are you? Logic not your strong suit?
100 times as many people saw Iron Man 2 this week than saw Kick-Ass. Sounds to me like you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
I think your joke detector is out of whack
IM 2 weekend projects based on previous summer sequels -
spider-man 3, internal multiplier : 2.525
IM 2 : 132.57
pirates 2, internal multiplier : 2.43
IM 2 : 127.58
tdk, internal multiplier : 2.36
IM 2 : 123.9
*note : spider man 2 would have been a good comparison as spider man 1 was lighter like iron man, compared to batman begins. but that opened on a wednesday.
The fact that it opened early in some countries- and the inevitable piracy that followed- was likely a factor.
Even so, this is hardly a disappointing opening. I have a feeling IM2 will end up being a solid performer all summer, given that word of mouth appears fairly strong. Fanboys may not consider it on par with Spiderman 2, but it’s also not being branded a disappointment like Spiderman 3.
Of course, it ultimately won’t matter what fanboys think anyway, because casual moviegoers are going to be the real audience. And they’re only going to care if Robert Downey Jr. is still fun to watch, which he is.
I loved the first Iron Man, but this sequel was BORING, formless, charmless. Everything cool was already show in the trailers. This is one of the talkiest movies I’ve ever seen …and no one as anything to say. Blah blah blah short action scene blah blah blah short action scene blah blah blah END. The actors were sleepwalking through it….they had nothing to do, I can’t blame them.
Terrible. Word of mouth will kill it after opening weekend…no repeat business like Dark Knight.
Thank you.
LOL, IM2 couldn’t even shatter any box office precedents in its opening weekend. This current business climate has conditioned me to think that the film should now be mocked, ridiculed, and written off as a borderline fiasco of Heaven’s Gate proportions. REBOOT! REBOOT!
That was true…it was AWESOME to have Robert Downey Jr. and the Producer pop in at the ARCLIGHT right before the movie started. It made the audience go crazy….I thought that was the best movie I ever saw, simply because…How many times do you get to watch a movie, and have the STAR OF THE MOVIE come out along with the producer, without being a Hollywood bigwig…Im just a working guy that loves movie…but it was GREAT
Gino G.
Not only was this not as good as the first, it wasn’t even good in general. Luckily, I had low expectations going in so I wasn’t disappointed. Feels like they rushed this into completion without regard to whether they actually made a good movie. My thoughts:
1) Not enough action… too much (poor) story. How can you make a summer tentpole movie with ONLY 2-3 action scenes?
2) For all the bad PR they got for booting TD Howard in favor of Don Cheadle, what a waste. I love Cheadle, but this role was so irrelevant they should have just kept Howard.
3) This is Sam Rockwell’s movie. His performance dwarfed everyone else’s… even better than Scarlett Johanson in skin tight lycra — can’t believe I’m saying that!
Save you money!
Just waiting for it to be available for $1 rental; you people still throwing your money at those fools?
dont know if other cinemas had problems with the digital download. i went on thurs midnigt to see it. the projection unit failed during down loaad. went fri and they started late because of same problems?
finally got to see it and confirmed my thoughts the most of the critics who panned it were wrong. that is my guage if a critic hates it its a mega money meker, if the like it its a boring long 2 hrs. the only movie i agreed with them was new moon that was a total turkey. poor directing, poor acting, poor script and really bad music. that lautner kid needs to learn how to kiss and act! he mumbled and never forcefully looked anyone in the face. being a father it is my duty to take my daughter but all i could think of was when will this end. one father next to me fell asleep started snoring, his daughter or who ever poked him! lol i hope eclipse is better i am bound by law to take her. (pg13) as for ironman2 loved it. micky as always was over the top!
It looks like a neat film. I haven’t seen any 3-D films of the new technology, but man I bet I would grow tired of getting things thrown at me.
What was so great about the first one?
I want to see this for Black Widow! YOW!
RDJ and the “dude” himself – Jeff Bridges.
Stop it with the 3D everything already, it’s crap. The only real 3D theater concept is holography and holographic theaters were promised to us by 2000 back in 1980, instead the whole shebang was given to the military to use as a weapon. Unfortunately, the only holographs the public gets now are the pathetic little security pictures on our credit cards. That isn’t 3D and neither is -anything- touted as “3D” via movie studios.
Ever wondered what happens in the brain when it is “seeing” 3D-ish images coming from a flat screen (2D)? Watch enough of it and you will quickly find out.
If you see oranges yet smell bananas, after a long enough time your brain will reassign the smell of oranges to one you experience when smelling bananas. Hang upside down long enough and your brain will correct it by physically flipping the image you see to compensate.
Ok, I dont know what most of these people were smoking during the watching of Iron Man 2 who that this movie was so amazing, but this move was CERTAINLY not as good as #1. Three quarters of this movie was a REAL SLEEPER! My wife and kids agreed! There was some nice action scenes here and there, but much of the action did’nt start until the last 20 minutes of the movie it seemed! I had a tough time keeping awake through the frig’n movie.
Iron Man #1 was an AWESOME movie! What the @#$*@! happened with Iron Man 2?! IF you’re going to spend that much money making a sequel, do it right! The box office tickets will certainly go down hill fast once the word gets ‘OK’ but certainly not all that great. This is certainly a ‘wait for Red Box movie rental’.
I agree with you. The first Iron Man was way better. Maybe it set the standard too high, making part 2 look pale in comparison no matter what. I had the same feeling when I saw the second Pirates Of The Caribbean movie. Actually, that was even more of a disappointment than Iron Man 2 was.
But somehow Iron Man 2 still got an “A” cinemascore! My guess is this movie will hold better than most comic book movies. It will be interesting to see if it grosses more than the first Iron Man in the end. An opening north of $130 million is almost a must for this movie to make more than the first one did. Sequel multiplyer from opening weekend to final gross is almost never as good as the first one. A 2.5 multiplyer would give Iron Man 2 around $320-$325 million, barely beating the first one’s total gross.
Then again, with the “A” cinemascore, maybe this movie can get a multiplyer of 3, making around $390-$400 million. Plus, there is no real competition to Iron Man 2 for the next two weekends until Sex And The City 2 comes out…Hahaha, just kidding. There’s no real competition until Prince Of Persia comes out.
I’m very interested in seeing how Iron Man 2 plays out the rest of the summer. Iron Man 3 in 3D will definetely beat both Iron Man and Iron Man 2….LOL
I wonder how well the opening weekend would be if the economy was in better shape…
You don’t really keep up with current movie trends, do you? The movie industry has always benefitted from hard economic times. That’s why the total domestic gross went over $10 billion for the first time last year. And that’s also why total grosses for this year are ahead of last year at this point…Well, that, and the 3D movies! LOL
In the end, eventhough people complain about movie prices going up, movies at theaters are still considered a relatively cheap entertainment.
I seem to recall back in December that Avatar made “a disappointing $77 million” in it’s opening weekend. Yeah that movie turned out to be one of the great flops of all time didn’t it? Iron Man 2 is going to beat Transformers 2′s opening weekend and that movie hot $400 million. IM2 is ten times more entertaining and will almost certainly outgross Revenge of the Fallen. Newsflas, the movie that is ultimately going to break The Dark Knight’s opening weekend record is going to be… Batman 3.