Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
May 8, 2013
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Jay Barney: I highly doubt the other characters and stories will see the numbers Iron Man has been able to garner. Some of it has to do with timing and there is an element that has to do with the surprise success of the first Iron Man way back in 2008. There is no doubt the character is now beloved, and one of the most popular in the Avengers, but the schedule has had a huge benefit to the Iron Man and Marvel films.
I am not trying to minimize the success here, doing so would be stupid. However, studios have been able to carve out the first weekends of May as some of the most lucrative in the schedule. Going all the way back to 2001, the Mummy Returns opened to $68 million. The first weekend of May 2002 it was Spiderman with a $114 million opening. Then X2: X-Men United in 2003 to $85 million…and so on. There have been a few quieter early Mays…but for the most part you have huge blockbusters with amazing openings. Spiderman 3 was huge in 2007 with a $151 million opening. Then Iron Man….a year later Wolverine…..Iron Man 2….Fast Five…all enormous openings. Not to mention Avengers.
I’m sure the sequels to the other movies will do fine. Maybe as the schedule unfolds in future years they will try to plug in a Captain America, Thor, or Hulk into early May.
Bruce Hall: I'm going to go the unscientific route and suggest that numbers aside, there's also something about Robert Downey, Jr in particular that draws fans to Iron Man. Thor was a successful film and Chris Hemsworth is particularly likable as that character. But I'm not sure Thor's world is particularly relatable to most people. I could say the same about Captain America. Tony Stark may or may not be a relatable character to most, but Downey himself is as ideal a fit for the character as Christopher Reeve was for Superman, so much so they even loved him in the bad ones. He's the best thing about these movies, and it's the reason they pay him so much. And I think he's a big part of the reason people turn out.
Edwin Davies: I'm expecting to see a spike for both Thor and Captain America sequels, but I'm not anticipating that either will make much more than $250 million, if that, though I wonder if Thor's November release date, which was so good to the Twilight series, might allow it to play well going into the holiday period. But then again, we're dealing with very different scales here: Iron Man 3's success is especially impressive because it's basically building on what was already a hugely successful couple of films in Iron Man 1 and 2. The best Thor and Captain America will hope for is to go from performing moderately well to being breakout hits. I'm not sure how likely that is, though, since neither original is as widely liked as the original Iron Man (or roundly disliked as Iron Man 2, so there's that) and both wouldn't stand out as the most memorable parts of The Avengers. Those would be The Hulk, Loki (so Thor and Loki teaming up might work in The Dark World's favor) and Iron Man.
This, for me, is the key to Iron Man 3's success. Although The Avengers was an ensemble film that gave plenty of attention to each character, Iron Man was the most well-known and popular going in, and he still was coming out of it. Robert Downey,Jr.'s just a bigger star that Hemsworth or Evans and he has stamped his personality on the role pretty emphatically. Those guys have a lot of room to build on with their sequels, but they're still starting from a much weaker position than Downey was this time around.
Tim Briody: They will get a slight bump but Iron Man is special because it was already huge (whereas the others were merely solid performers) but what helps is that Robert Downey just *is* Tony Stark. Can you really picture anyone else in that role for the rest of time? He's taken a B-list superhero and made him one of the most iconic characters of the last 30 years. That's what makes it special.
David Mumpower: I equal parts agree and disagree with the rest of you. I absolutely do not expect the Thor and Captain America sequels to open anywhere near as much as we are discussing with Iron Man 3. That's a slam dunk. Where I disagree is with the philosophy that only Iron Man will see a bump, presumably because of the presence of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. The increase relative to scale should be the focus here. Edwin mentions the delimiter of $250 million domestic as the top end. Thor and Captain America finished in the range of $177-$188 million. That is a 38-41% bump if the movies experience those box office results. It is a fair estimate if the other films follow Iron Man 3's trajectory as the opening weekend of $174.1 million represents a 36% increase from Iron Man 2's $128.1 million. In terms of opening weekends, Captain America and Thor debuted to $65.1 and $65.7 million, respectively. A 40% spike due to the rising tide lifting all boats would turn the sequels into $90 million openers. I believe those are reasonable expectations for a couple of projects that are much higher profile than the origin stories were just a couple of years ago.
Kim Hollis: It's true that Robert Downey Jr. is obviously the biggest star of the entire Avengers group and I think it's a no-brainer to say that neither Thor nor Captain America will see their sequels rise to the kind of heights that we just saw with Iron Man 3. With that said, I do think both sequels easily increase, probably by quite a bit. I'm not sure if I'm sold on Thor being a $90+ million opener, but that's a pretty solid trailer and I see no reason to believe that Avengers won't also provide a lift to the other characters.