I guess Robert Downey Jr. can start training again this Monday, because ‘Iron Man 2′ is pretty much confirmed by now. (for all the latest numbers see Iron Man box office facts and rumors)

‘Iron Man,’ which opened in about 60 territories this week, is expected to make over $100 million this weekend in the US alone. That’s just a couple of million short of the highest non-sequel opening by ‘Spider-man’ in 2002, which made $115 million. Yes Sony, you can be proud too, everybody is happy this weekend. Not even a little game called GTA IV could stop the iron man from exceeding every expectation.

Holding the world in a tight grip, ‘Iron Man’ is expected to exceed the $200 million bar worldwide, which makes it profitable in its first weekend if you don’t consider marketing costs. Not only a remarkable accomplishment for a relatively unknown comic book character, but also for Marvel. It’s their first independently produced picture and they didn’t shy away from taking some bold steps with this one. No studio in their right mind would have taken Robert Downey Jr. for the leading role. And I’m sure the Marvel Entertainment stock will make a little jump ahead of the official weekend numbers this Monday.

Again, you can go here for the Iron Man box office totals.

Not only is a big part of the upcoming ‘Iron Man’ dialog and script improvised, Robert Downey Jr. was also not considered suitable for such an expensive movie. In an in depth interview with SSH!, director Jon Favreau touched upon the making of the new Marvel project. And how the independent aspect of the movie helped him to take the movie above average.

“Well, these movies don’t really have scripts which are locked in a traditional sense. [...] Sometimes Robert and I would scribble it down on a piece of poster board between takes if we had a different idea. Sometimes we would just give it three takes for him to try different things, or we’d have two cameras and him and Gwyneth then would improvise different versions of the scenes.“

While a representative had to sign off on big changes, the lack of a big studio breathing down Favreau’s neck got him a lot of “latitude and leeway.”

Initially however, Robert Downey Jr. wasn’t approved for the big budget movie. “[...] they didn’t like the idea of Robert–they were scared of him, they told me ‘no, I couldn’t hire him’ and it felt like too big of a risk,” Favreau said. But he pushed trough and when everybody saw the screen test Downey Jr. did, they stopped asking questions. “They wanted me to go with somebody younger and somebody with less of a reputation, and I was like this could be like casting Johnny Depp in ‘Pirates.’ This could define the movie and bring it out of obscurity and out of this sort of ’second-rate Spider-Man’ status that it’s in.“

The missing studio aspect of this movie is interesting. Del Toro recently said making a studio movie was like “having five hands holding your hand while you’re drawing a comic book.” And it looks like there was only one hand holding Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. down while making this movie.

Famous for his work on ‘Spider-man,’ ‘X-men,’ ‘Iron Man’ and other well known characters, 85-year-old Stan Lee made a deal with Virgin Comics to create 10 new comic heroes. Sure to bring some of them to the silver screen, they will first be introduced in 10 graphic novels next year.

“Stan Lee is unquestionably one of history’s greatest storytellers,” the Virgin Comics’ creative officer told Variety. “To collaborate with him, and have him guide and nurture artists and writers through Virgin Comics, will be one of the legacies of this company.”

Some potentially good material for a couple of movies. With ‘The Dark Knight,’ ‘The Incredible Hulk,’ and ‘Iron Man’ opening this summer, together with a bunch of other big budget movies, I wonder if they’ll all be profitable.