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Jason Lee: Call me crazy, but I worry about the two most significant factors of sequelitis here: it's not as new and not as good. Given that, I'm antsy about the unlikely-but-possible scenario that this film just barely or just misses the $318 million of the first. The audience demo for opening weekend was older and more female than the first film's opening weekend, so I'm curious to see what'll happen without as large an influx of male moviegoers to prop up this gross.

Jim Van Nest: I would say that the first film was the anomaly here in that it had just the right combination of factors to have huge legs. I would look for 2 to go back to "the rule" and have a huge drop off opening weekend and to perform like a summer blockbuster sequel. Nothing wrong with that - it's just that Iron Man's success may have jacked up expectations for Iron Man 2 a little too high.

Reagen Sulewski: These all sound like the same things that could have been said about Transformers 2 last year, and look what happened there. One thing that works against it somewhat is that weekdays in May aren't as lucrative as they are in June and July, but that's a minor factor. I have a hard time seeing this falling short of $375 million, based on crowd reactions.

David Mumpower: Reagen, while I always point out that $293 million of Revenge of the Fallen’s box office did not come from its opening weekend, there is a bit of sleight of hand there. As a Wednesday opener with huge fanboy appeal, it had a five-day debut of $200 million. Almost exactly half of the movie’s final box office total of $402.1 million came in those five days. So, its legs blew. Similarly, while we were quick to praise New Moon for that staggering $142.8 million opening, the reason why it was not our biggest industry story of the year is that it too died on the vine. New Moon didn’t quite reach $300 million. I fear that Iron Man 2 is going to share a similar fate of a poor final box office multiplier due to its opening weekend ubiquity. As the widest release to date, the film has been made readily available to anyone who wanted to see it. I am of the opinion that we are looking at the second largest opener to fail to reach $300 million. Quality word-of-mouth helps, but it only goes so far.

Matthew Huntley: I think we'll see an expected 50-55% decline next weekend, followed by more moderate declines of 40-45% thereafter, which would allow Iron Man 2 to out-gross the original in terms of raw box-office, but probably fall behind in overall ticket sales. Its direct competition is rather low for the next month and a half (I agree Robin Hood doesn't pose much of a threat), and the Prince of Persia may be a disaster waiting to happen. With generally good vibes at the exit polls, it's hard to imagine Stark and friends not grossing $330 domestically and overtaking Alice in Wonderland as the biggest hit of the year so far.

Kim Hollis: I'm thinking Iron Man 2 gets over $300 million but only just. It's not going to beat the first film, but it will come darned close.

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