Baby Mama: $21,997,470 ($30 million budget)
Harold & Kumar 2: $19,254,964 ($12 million budget)
Forgetting Sarah Marshall: $14,609,525 ($30 million budget, second week)

We’re back with our weekly box office roundup. Who won? It depends on how you see it. ‘Baby Mama’ did $3 million more than ‘Harold & Kumar 2,’ but only managed to make 73% of its budget. ‘Harold & Kumar 2′ however, made 160% (!) of its costs. Making it profitable in its first week, not considering any marketing costs.

We can clearly see how ‘Harold & Kumar 2′ took a dive after its launch though, so I wouldn’t expect it to have as much legs as ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ has. We already noted it last week, when ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ slowly took over from ‘The Forbidden Kingdom,’ and this week proves Marshall will stick around a little longer. It still made 50% of its budget, while Kumar is probably not making next week’s top 3.

‘The Forbidden Kingdom’ is slowly getting out too. It made $550,000 on Thursday and isn’t expected to do much next week.

So let’s see what the first weeks of summer box office violence will bring, starting with ‘Iron Man’ next week. From then on, all hell will break loose!

Finally some progress in the negotiations between the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the studios. Where we in our last update mentioned how the studios wouldn’t give in on the SAG’s demands for double residuals from DVD sales, the SAG has finally let go. They’ve now lowered it to just 15% and also lowered some other demands, like the 50% pay increase for guest stars on TV shows.

The talks between the studios and the SAG will again be extended until next Tuesday. And the studios have again asked the AFTRA (Radio and Television) to delay their talks to Wednesday. Earlier this week, the studios stated the SAG was being ‘unresponsive, unreasonable and unrealistic.’ Surprisingly, this seemed to have helped. But it’s far from over. The people looking for a strike might still get one — though I hope there aren’t a lot of those.

Yes, we’re not yet shutting up about ‘Iron Man.’ Give us another five to ten posts before the hype is over.

If you thought the US was the only country all over ‘Iron Man,’ you couldn’t be more wrong. Robert Downey Jr. is getting ready to dominate the whole world. The last three days Paramount Pictures International launched the movie in, well, pretty much everywhere. Argentina, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Mexico, Australia, Italy, New Zealand, Russia and the list goes on. The only important country that’s not getting the Marvel movie right now is Japan, which is less into the testosterone-driven type of entertainment.

Expect some worldwide estimates to hit early next week.

[update]
The word is Jon Favreau and the gang did $30 million overseas on Wednesday and Thursday. This might be an even bigger hit outside the US!

Maggie Gyllenhaal is replacing Toni Collette in the untitled Sam Mendes comedy, which is being filmed in Connecticut. Well, I say untitled, but IMDB’s sources say the title is ‘Farlanders.’ What we do know for sure, is that it’s about a family traveling through the US to find the right place to live and start a family.

Toni Collette had to drop out because of the shooting delay and scheduling conflicts. Don’t you hate that too, when you’re making a movie with Sam ‘American Beauty’ Mendes?

For the latest numbers: Iron Man box office facts and rumors.

It’s been just a couple of hours or let’s say a small day, but our friend Steve Mason already has the first numbers on ‘Iron Man.’ And the superhero is getting ready to rise into the sky. The first movie theaters started playing ‘Iron Man’ at 8pm yesterday, with a total of about 2,500 locations. Two of the biggest cinemas (Regal Cinemas and AMC) generated a total of $2.5 million in ticket sales in the first hours.

This might not exceed ‘Spider-man’ or ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ from last year, but both were sequels, which always tend to do better numbers in their opening weekend. ‘Iron Man’ is not expected to do much less, with predictions ranging from $5 to $8 million for Thursday alone. And that’s without big marketing efforts. Needless to say, with the total for Thursday coming in Sunday, ‘Iron Man’ is off to the expected good start. Tracking for a $100 million weekend, having a head start on the other blockbusters this summer is certainly paying off.

We’ll keep you updated when new ‘Iron Man’ numbers come in.

It must be that time again in Hollywood. After Hilary Swank, Nicole Kidman now also committed to a biopic. Kidman will play Dusty Springfield, an Amy Winehouse type of girl. Not only because of her voice, but also because of her drug and alcohol abuse. Some themes may not be uncommon to Nicole Kidman, since much of Springfield’s trouble took place when she moved to Hollywood in the seventies.

Kidman will also produce the movie, which will be written by Michael Cunningham, the writer of ‘The Hours.’ And while this project is financed by Fox, Universal is working on a similar movie. Creating a situation resembling the two Truman Capote biopics that went head to head, Universal is currently developing a Dusty Springfield biopic with Kristin Chenoweth.