Monday Morning Quarterback Part II

By Kim Hollis

May 18, 2010

God, why couldn't you have let Orlando draft me?

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Josh Spiegel: This just proves that word-of-mouth isn't the same as the A grade from Cinemascore (or that we just should ignore the latter). It seems more obvious now that Iron Man 2 (despite being better than the major critical consensus said it was) is going to perform like a typical blockbuster, but still make plenty of money. My guess as to the pecking order of the three films is that Shrek Forever After (or Shrek: The Final Chapter, or Shrek: Makin' More and More Money, or whatever they're calling it today) will gross the lowest, followed by Iron Man 2, followed by Toy Story 3, which I still believe is the highest-grossing movie of this year. I'd also not discount Inception as a high grosser, but among these three, Buzz Lightyear and Woody the cowboy should be the tops.

Matthew Huntley: This doesn't really change a lot. A 59% drop for a high-profile sequel actually seems pretty good these days (remember, The Dark Knight fell 53% during its sophomore stint), and in the coming weeks, along with a boost from Memorial Day weekend, the declines should stabilize a bit. I still think Iron Man 2 2 will earn over $300 million domestically, but not by as much as I originally thought (a $330 million finish seems likely).

When all is said and done, I'd still put Iron Man 2 on top, followed by Toy Story 3 and then Shrek Forever After. But it should be noted Iron Man 2 had the luxury of less competition to start out with. Had Toy Story opened first, I would crown it the victor. Shrek still remains a wild card, but if its quality is anything like its ads suggest, it's in trouble.

Michael Lynderey: As of last weekend, I'd suspected that Iron Man 2 wouldn't exactly have great legs, so I'm not at all surprised. This is still a mega-hit, no doubt, it's just not the kind of film that grabs hold of a year and doesn't let go - the race for biggest movie of 2010 is now officially wide open, and that's where Shrek and Toy Story come in. Well, not Shrek, I don't think - $300 million isn't necessarily a lock in this case. Toy Story 3 is really the one to watch - that's the film that could possibly beat out Alice in Wonderland, which appears to have become the new benchmark to beat this year. Who woulda thought?




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Jason Lee: I was expecting a good bit of disenchantment from this film, simply by the fact that the first one was so much wittier, enjoyable and FUN. The drop is totally understandable. I think it'll stagger across the $300 mil mark, but ultimately get passed up by Toy Story 3. As for Shrek, I think it falls short of $300 million.

Reagen Sulewski: Josh, there's a separate factor from word-of-mouth at these higher levels of box office, specifically, audience size. It may just be that Iron Man maximized the audience for an Iron Man film the first time around, so when it comes to the sequel, there's nowhere else for it to go. So maybe everyone who saw Iron Man 2 liked it, but they had no one else to tell to see it other than those people who already had.

It does look now that it's going to struggle to reach the $300 million mark, which is perhaps a bit disappointing, but that should be tempered with thoughts that this is a franchise that most would have likely pegged in the $200 million bracket prior to the first one's release. They're playing with a lot of house money here.


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