‘Iron Man’ is joining the $300 million club today, making daddy Marvel very proud. By putting more dollars into ‘The Incredible Hulk,’ the company was clearly expecting ‘Iron Man’ to do less. And I think nobody was expecting this kind of success. ‘Iron Man’ will be the first movie this year to pass the mark, even before ‘Indiana Jones 4′ will. The old Indy currently has a domestic gross of $280 million.

The $300 million club is a quite exclusive one and only two, maybe three movies make it per year. ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’ was the fastest movie to reach $300 million in just 16 days in 2006.

‘Iron Man’ has grossed over $550 million worldwide by now, where ‘The Incredible Hulk’ might barely beat half of that in its lifetime. The new Hulk is projected at around $150 in the US, with the overseas total going into the same direction.

That’s the big question. Will ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ do an ‘Iron Man’ or ‘Prince Caspian’ weekend. The last one, ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian,’ had much lower opening than what initial tracking indicated. ‘Iron Man’ however, surprised the industry by breaking $100 million in the US during the first couple of days.

Tracking numbers for ‘Indiana Jones 4′ are good, but will it be able to top the opening of ‘Spider-man 3′ last year? The comic book hero made over $151 million in its first weekend, beating the $136 million opening by ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’ in 2006.

The first two ‘Indiana Jones’ movies didn’t even cross the $200 million bar domestically during their total running time. But the first ‘Indiana Jones’ only cost $28 million and the second $48 million. The new ‘Indiana Jones’ movie is rumored to cost anywhere between $125 and $200 million to produce. Including marketing and distribution, the movie has to make $400 million before Harrison, Spielberg and Lucas will get paid.