‘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.

Not much has changed since our last update a couple of hours ago. The final box office results are in line with what we expected. It was a soft start for ‘The Incredible Hulk.’ People still had the bad aftertaste from the first Hulk movie and the $150 million blockbuster didn’t manage to top $55 million. Now $54.5 million isn’t a bad start and it beats Marvel’s (low) expectations. But with a $100 million ‘Iron Man’ opening weekend last month, this number shouldn’t satisfy them. Especially since ‘Iron Man’ was cheaper and a lesser-known character. Marvel simply didn’t succeed in explaining why people should see the green faced Bruce Banner another time. Ang Lee’s ‘The Hulk’ grossed $62 million in its opening weekend.

Meanwhile, ‘The Happening’ gives a mixed picture. While some expected the thriller to end up in the low teens, $30.5 million is a decent number. Considering the $60 million budget, Fox might have wanted a little more. But they made a smart choice by releasing the B-movie worldwide from day one. Not including marketing and distribution, the $32 million overseas gross surprisingly makes M. Night Shyamalan’s work profitable from the first weekend. In this aspect, you could say Fox’ marketing for ‘The Happening’ was better than Universal’s for ‘The Incredible Hulk.’ While it still has to launch in about 25% of its markets, ‘The Incredible Hulk’ made just $31 million overseas.

Continue reading Final box office weekend estimates, ‘The Incredible Hulk’ tops with decent performance, ‘Kung Fu Panda’ second before ‘The Happening’

Another week, another look at the post-weekend box office drop, where we compare the weekend with the week to see how long the new movies will stay around.

1. Sex and the City
Saturday and Sunday: $13,910,620 million
Monday and Tuesday: $5,354,732 million
Drop: 61.5%

Continue reading The soft post-weekend box office drop