Very early ‘Iron Man’ box office numbers

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.