Monday Morning Quarterback Part II
By BOP Staff
May 8, 2013
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.
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