Move over Batman, Spiderman, and Superman, there may be a new big man on campus. "Iron Man 3" just passed the billion dollar sales plateau, and did it in a mere 24 days.
Granted, Batman already accomplished that feat with "The Dark Night," but still, it appears that fans around the globe are embracing the newest in a long lineage of Marvel superheroes. Iron Man's ascension has been a rapid one as well.
"'Iron Man' was never the perennial best-seller that 'Superman' and 'Batman' were for their publisher; 'Iron Man' only first approached the very top of the sales charts in 1996," observes John Jackson Miller, curator of the historical sales archive The Comics Chronicles.
The movie was expected to do explode at the box office, with a star-studded cast headed by Robert Downey Jr., among others. The director, Shane Black, also happens to be one of the most respected writers in Hollywood, only adding to the film's prestige.
"Iron Man 3" also got a lot of help from the overseas market in its march to the billion dollar landmark, with over $100 million coming from China alone. The next biggest were Korea ($56 million), the U.K. ($49 million) and Mexico ($43 million). Only 15 other movies have ever grossed more than a billion dollars.
"To an extent, It's a sign of the times," Disney's head of distribution Dave Hollis said, referring to the huge recent growth of the international market. "But we had a great movie that was embraced all around the world as the summer's first blockbuster. We had that incredible May Day, the word of mouth was terrific and we're still seeing the effects of that."
Much has been made about Downey Jr.'s pay for the movie which is both substantially larger and contractually different from all of the other actor's pay. Downey Jr. is the only actor in the movie who will get paid on a percentage basis of the profits. There are many, however, who believe Downey Jr. is fully deserving of his astronomical salary.
"In the same way that 'Pirates of the Caribbean' became a massive hit because of Johnny Depp's performance, it is Downey who deserves the lion's share of the credit for Marvel's success with 'Iron Man," says Exhibitor Relations box-office analyst Jeff Bock. "If they do go forward without Downey as the anchor of the franchise, they better replace him with, at minimum, three other 'Iron Man's."
A billion dollars of sales in less than a month would seem to agree with Mr. Bock.