It’s hard to believe we’ve had almost a full decade of the excellence of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, spearheaded, of course, by our favored Armored Avenger!
“Who’d have thought on this day eight years ago when a little movie called Iron Man hit theaters that it would be the first building block in what would become the towering structure of the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
At the time, the movie was a risk: Marvel had just entered into a massive financing contract with Merrill Lynch to fund their slate of self-produced films, and Iron Man needed to be a hit.
But there were many, many X factors and pitfalls along the way. Marvel had sold all its most popular characters —Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Fantastic —to other studios. Iron Man was, at that point, a B-side Marvel character, one so low status that over 30 screenwriters passed on the project before it found its writers.
By now, most also know the famous doubts that swirled around Robert Downey, Jr.’s casting and director Jon Favreau’s fight to land him the lead role. The actor was still mostly persona non grata in Hollywood due to his troubled past, and while the actor had been clean and sober for years, he was still eyed as a risk. Would he be able to shoulder the burden of anchoring this franchise, the entry point to Marvel’s self-financed cinematic universe?
Iron Man (2008) – Worldwide total: $585,174,222 (Domestic: $318,412,101)
Iron Man 2 (2010) – Worldwide total: $623,933,331 (Domestic: $312,433,331)
Iron Man 3 (2013) – Worldwide total: $1,215,439,994 (Domestic: $409,013,994)
While the third film certainly earned a massive box office bump thanks to being the first Marvel film released in a post-Avengers world, it’s also worth noting that the first two Iron Man films were distributed by Paramount. For Iron Man 3, the distribution rights were firmly back in Marvel Studios’ hands, and that, combined with the aforementioned post-Avengers surge, gave Tony Stark’s standalone franchise the kind of global box office haul that had been typically reserved for giant ensemble team-ups (that includes Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings) and one-off James Cameron films.
In fact, the Iron Man franchise has been so strong that Iron Man 3 globally grossed only $300 million less than The Avengers, which seems a huge gap between films, but is still impressive when considering, again, one was for a standalone character and the other for the first live action team-up of some of Marvel’s best-loved characters at that point. Compare it to this year’s highly-anticipated Batman v Superman, for example, and Iron Man 3 has still outgrossed that film by over $400 million dollars.
Iron Man has been, by far, the most profitable character for Marvel Studios (though that is very likely about to change with this week’s release of Captain America: Civil War). Averaging the global box office totals for all three of Marvel’s independent character franchises with more than one film released, Iron Man comes out as the clear heavyweight, averaging $808,182,516 per film. The Thor franchise is next with an average of $546,964,567, and Captain America follows close behind with an average of $542,495,639 per film.
It’s no surprise, then, that recent buzz has started circulating again around a potential Iron Man 4 film, previously thought a no-go. But with Robert Downey, Jr. signing on for a role in Spider-Man: Homecoming, and both Downey and former director Favreau expressing interest in working together again for Marvel, Marvel’s most lucrative franchise may soon become its longest-running in a post-MCU universe.”
Source: Forbes
