Survey says, probably not. Looking at the numbers, the inaugural release from Marvel Studios really brought home the bacon. Domestically, Iron Man pulled in a whopping $102 million in gross returns this weekend, giving it one of the 10 best opening weekends of all time (boxofficemojo.com). That’s quite a feat, considering that this was one of the first comic book film adaptations that didn’t feature a villain of prominence.

Many industry pundits theorized that the release of the latest installment in Rockstar Games’ ragingly successful and undeniably controversial Grand Theft Auto series would have cannibalized sales from the movie. While there is no doubt that the game has been selling quite well, that was to be expected. Iron Man arrived with very little fanfare. How many movie posters or billboards did you see before its launch? In comparison, GTA IV posters could be found all around Chicago, along with a host of billboards and TV ads.

Industry experts are theorizing that GTA IV might stand to earn $450 million in sales this year, but let’s stack that up against where Iron Man is likely to land by year’s end. Even if it fares only moderately well, say along the lines of Bruce Almighty. That means Iron Man would pull in over $480 million during its theatrical run. But to be fair, I’m guessing that this fantastic film will fare even better, probably more along the lines of Shrek 2 and Spider Man 3, somewhere around $800 million.

What do you have to say to that, Niko?

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 11:54 pm and is filed under Vince Scalabrino, Shotgun Contributors, Gaming: Video or otherwise, Film. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.