International Box Office: Iron Man 3 has record breaking debut

With the release of Iron Man 3 internationally, the summer movie season has officially begun, and what a start this was. The 3rd direct sequel to the Robert Downey Jr. action flick had the biggest opening of all time for Marvel, superheroes or comic book adaptations in general. Yes, it was higher than The Avengers.  Iron Man 3 opened with an incredible $198.4 million from 42 territories or about 79% of the total international market. Now let me put that number in perspective. Back in 2008 the original Iron Man left theaters with $266.8 million internationally and $585.2 million worldwide. Two years later Iron Man 2 improved on its predecessor with $311.5 million internationally and $623.9 million worldwide. Finally, a year ago The Avengers blew everyone away with a $185 million debut, ending up at $888.4 million internationally. Iron Man 3 beat all of the above, so what does that mean? Well it seems we have The Avengers‘s success to thank for this incredible performance. You see, instead of playing like a sequel to Iron Man 2, part 3 became more like an Avengers 2, thus we got such an enormous amount of money for a series that’s never come even close to these heights. Now don’t get me wrong, as good as all of this is, I can’t see Iron Man 3 finishing with more than $600-700 million internationally (and more than $1 billion worldwide), after all, this is not The Avengers 2, that’s coming in 2015. Phase 2 is really on for Marvel and I can’t wait to see what Thor: The Dark World can do in November, in this post-Avengers era for superhero films.,In 2nd place we got Chinese drama So Young, with a $22.7 million opening. According to Wikipedia, the film cost around $5 million to make so I guess it’s already very profitable over there.Oblivion (which I just saw a few hours ago) was down to 3rd with $13.5 million. So far the uneven (yet very much enjoyable) sci-fi starring Tom Cruise has $134.1 million internationally and $202.1 million worldwide. Made for $120 million, Oblivion will end up at around $300 million when all will be said and done.

The Croods moves to 4th (down from 3rd) at $13.2 million for an international total of $305.6 million. Now worldwide the DreamWorks Animation feature has amassed $469.5 million, $25.4 million shy of How to Train Your Dragon‘s total.

Rounding out the top 5 we have the Joes with $10.2 million. After a month in theaters, G.I. Joe: Retaliation grossed $232.7 million internationally and $349.7 million worldwide. So maybe moving this flick to a March release and converting it to 3D wasn’t such a bad idea after all.