Iron Man 3 rockets to the top in North America debut
NEW YORK: Superhero sequel ‘ Iron Man 3’ rocketed to the top of US and Canadian box office charts, kicking off Hollywood’s summer movie season with US$ 175.3 million (£112.5 million) in weekend ticket sales for the second-biggest film opening of all time.
Combined with international sales, the movie from Walt Disney Co’s Marvel studio brought its global haul to an estimated US$ 680.1 million, Disney said on Sunday.
The film stars Robert Downey Jr. as billionaire businessman Tony Stark, whose superhero alter- ego spars with an evil extremist.
‘ Iron Man 3’ fed off the success of the first two instalments plus last year’s ‘ The Avengers’, a superhero mashup that united Iron Man, The Hulk and other Marvel characters. ‘ Avengers’ opened on the same weekend last year with US$ 207.4 million over its first three days, a record for the United States and Canada.
‘ Iron Man 3’ finished second on the all-time list behind ‘ Avengers’ and ahead of the July 2011 release of ‘ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2’, which opened with US$ 169.2 million, according to the box office division of Hollywood.com.
“It is an extraordinary start,” said Dave Hollis, Disney’s executive vice president of distribution. “The start on the US side is something that we are exceptionally proud of.”
The US$ 200-million production is another hit for Disney, which is focusing its movie studio on franchise films like ‘ Iron Man’ that can spawn movie sequels, toy sales and theme-park rides.
The two previous ‘ Iron Man’ movies earned a combined US$ 1.2 billion around the world, according to the Box Office Mojo website.
‘ Iron Man 3’ debuted in international markets starting Apr 24 to record openings in many countries including China and Russia, generating buzz ahead of its release the United States and Canada.
The big domestic numbers for ‘ Iron Man 3’ boosted the overall box office, which is dragging behind 2012 after a sluggish winter and spring.
Studios are counting on summer action films, superhero stories and sequels to lift ticket sales in the coming months. Future releases include sci-fi sequel ‘ Star Trek Into Darkness’, Superman reboot ‘ Man of Steel’ and robot-versus- aliens action flick ‘ Pacific Rim’.
The ‘ Iron Man’ mania trounced all other movies over the weekend.
Last week’s winner, dark action comedy ‘ Pain & Gain’, dropped to second place with US$ 7.6 million. Baseball drama ‘ 42’ took the No. 3 slot with US$ 6.2 million.
Rounding out the top five, Tom Cruise’s post-apocalyptic thriller ‘ Oblivion’ grossed US$ 5.79 million, and the animated film ‘ The Croods’ rang up US$ 4.2 million.
‘ The Big Wedding’ — a starstudded comedy featuring Robert De Niro, Katherine Heigl, Diane Keaton and Robin Williams — came in sixth place, taking in US$ 3.9 million.
‘ Mud’, a coming- of- age story starring Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon, earned an estimated US$ 2.2 million, for seventh place, the film’s first week in the top ten after going into wide release a week earlier. And in eighth, Walt Disney’s 3D fantasy adventure flick ‘ Oz the Great and Powerful’ earned US$ 1.8 million, for a nine-week total of US$ 228.6 million.
‘ Scary Movie 5’, the latest instalment in the slasher - comedy franchise, took the ninth spot with US$ 1.4 million.
Rounding out the top 10 at US$ 1.3 million was ‘ The Place Beyond the Pines’, starring Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper in a drama about a motorcycle stunt rider who resorts to bank robbery to provide for his lover and their newborn child.
‘ Pain & Gain’ was released by Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc. Comcast Corp’s Universal Pictures distributed ‘ Oblivion’. Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc, released ‘ 42’. — Reuters/ AFP
PROMOTING IRON MAN: (Topmost) Actor Robert Downey Jr. (C) and Marvel Comics representatives ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange to promote his new movie‘ Iron Man 3’, Apr 30. • (Above) Cast member Gwyneth Paltrow poses at the premiere.— Reuters photos