Will 'Iron Man 2' top 'The Dark Knight' Box Office Record?
Fri, May 7, 2010 
That’s the question on everyone’s mind, Will Iron Man 2 top The Dark Knight box office record this weekend?
Iron Man 2 is set to appear on 4380 screens this weekend, while The Dark Knight only appeared on 4366 screens in its widest release.
The dark Knight set an opening weekend record of $158 million showing on 3000 screens, it’s midnight showing brought in 18.4 million on 3000 screens. Iron Man 2 already has some catching up to do, the midnight showing that appeared on 2500 screens only made 7.5 million. You can make the argument that TDK was released on more screens, but even then the average gross per location is nearly double in TDK’ favour, TDK having earned over $6000 average, while Iron Man 2 was only able to make an average of $3000 per location.
Iron Man 2 has the slight advantage with increased ticket sales and a few extra screens, but will the word of mouth from the midnight and Friday showings transfer into the huge returns they’re looking for, Not likely. This is where The Dark Knight, unfortunately for Iron Man has the upper hand. The Dark Knight’ word of mouth and reviews were over whelming to the point it was able to come in much higher than studio projections ever expected.
Iron Man 2 hasn’t received terrible reviews, but they haven’t come in nearly as positive as its 2008 predecessor. The first Iron Man was a surprise smash hit for most people, a relatively unknown super hero, a comedic director, and Robert Downey Jr. They brought the character to life, and in turn the movie made an astonishing 585 million World Wide at the box office.
Given the franchises success everyone is expecting to see a huge boost in Box Office numbers coming into this weekend’s Blockbuster sequel. I don’t doubt it will go on to make a substantial amount of money, but the possibility of it beating TDK opening record of 158 million and/ or crossing the 1billion World Wide mark by the end of it theatrical run, like some people have suggested, seems slightly less obtainable, both now that I’ve seen the over hyped product that is Iron Man 2, and the fact of it being well behind already just on the midnight showing alone.
I’m predicting Iron Man 2 will make 150ish million in its opening weekend (slightly less than my original prediction), and it will end its World Wide box office run with $750 million.
Iron Man 2 opens everywhere today, you can check out my review HERE.
Check back to TMT on Sunday to see how Iron Man did over the weekend, and give Mike Shadwick's review a read.
Reader Comments (5)
before having seen it, I would have argued that just from the look of the trailers TDK is in trouble, but now that I've seen it I agree it will be very hard to top TDK.
I saw TDK in theaters 3 times, I dont plan to see Iron Man 2 again, I liked it but I'll wait for it to come out on video.
very cool article Mitch.
I agree %100 with you on this, the trailers and hype has been very misleading thus far. I think once people see this, they'l be content with it, but not mind fucked by it like TDK, I too saw that like dave said several time in the theatre as well
Yeah, my review is up. I'm assuming that not all movie goers are brainless and realize that this is not only way below the level of The Dark Knight, but really just isn't a good movie. Word of mouth should get around and wreak havoc on ticket sales.
I think the majority of ppl will still enjoy it enough to make it a heavy weight at the box office for at least the next month, my guess anyway
52 million on Friday...that seems like a good start to me.