By Ryan Parsons | Image property of Paramount Pictures, Variety
Iron Man
Marvel has to be feeling pretty good. The studio's first tentpole out of the gates, Iron Man, earned enough money during it's five-day bow to become one of the all-time highest openers.
Iron Man Takes Box Office
No surprise here. Iron Man earned $104.2 million domestically -- $3.5 million of which came from the early Thursday screenings -- and $96.8 internationally to bring its total worldwide cume to $201 million in its first five days.
The film's ticket sales gave Iron Man the second-best opening ever for a non-sequel right behind Spider-Man, which opened to $114.8 million on the same weekend back in 2002. The film also snuck into the 10th spot for the best opening of all time.
Though Paramount handled the film's distribution, Marvel Studios' has to be gleaming at the moment.
“I couldn’t imagine a better blast off for our new Marvel Studios than this,” said Marvel Studios chair David Maisel. “The Marvel brand is beloved. People know it stands for a summer, family-friendly action movie. And we had fantastic casting.”
Marvel Studios had to use $130 million of their $525 million credit lin with Merrill Lynch. Once Paramount recovers its costs and gets paid for their distribution fee, all the leftover money will go straight to Marvel.
Though Iron Man opened strong, the weekend was still down a whopping 13% from last year thanks most in part to Spider-Man 3's opening of $151.1 million, the highest on record.
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