{"id":1632,"date":"2008-04-29T12:04:55","date_gmt":"2008-04-29T11:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=1632"},"modified":"2008-04-29T12:46:35","modified_gmt":"2008-04-29T11:46:35","slug":"iron-man-should-be-a-huge-hit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2008\/04\/29\/iron-man-should-be-a-huge-hit\/","title":{"rendered":"Iron Man should be a huge hit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ironmanmovie.marvel.com\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright alignnone size-full wp-image-1633\" style=\"float: right;\" title=\"Iron Man poster\" src=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/ironmanposter.jpg\" alt=\"Courtesy of Marvel \/ Paramount\" width=\"200\" height=\"286\" \/><\/a>I saw <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0371746\/\"><strong>Iron Man<\/strong><\/a> last night and I&#8217;d be very surprised if it doesn&#8217;t open really big this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>If you aren&#8217;t familiar with the character, it is one of the few remaining <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marvel.com\/universe\/Main_Page\">Marvel heroes<\/a> who hasn&#8217;t made it to the big screen in the last decade.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Iron_man\">Tony Stark<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0000375\/\">Robert Downey Jnr<\/a>) is a billionaire industrialist and genius inventor who is kidnapped in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Afghanistan\">Afghanistan<\/a>, where he builds a high-tech suit of armor to escape.<\/p>\n<p>When he returns to the US he decides to change his cynical arms-dealing ways and protect the world as Iron Man.<\/p>\n<p>Various elements of the film click into place:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The pace is brisk and despite being an origin story, it doesn&#8217;t get too bogged down in a sluggish plot.<\/li>\n<li>Director Jon Favreau has gone for a nice mix of humour and action &#8211; it doesn&#8217;t take itself too seriously, despite the terrorist and arms dealing elements.<\/li>\n<li>Robert Downey Jnr demonstrates what an engaging presence he can be in the lead role, with bursts of cocky wit and a nice strain of self-deprecating humour.<\/li>\n<li>Gwyneth Paltrow plays a more substantial supporting character than is usual for these kind of films.<\/li>\n<li>The mix of CGI and live action is expertly done &#8211; Stan Winston&#8217;s design of the Iron Man suit, the visual effects of him in action and the sound editing are all award worthy.<\/li>\n<li>The action sequences are impressive, particularly the first two big set pieces.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are a couple of elements that don&#8217;t quite come off, notably the climax which is a little too standard given what has gone before it, but overall this is slick and smart summer blockbuster.<\/p>\n<p>Given the effective marketing campaign and quality of the finished film I would be suprised if this didn&#8217;t open to about $80 million in the US this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Some <a href=\"http:\/\/news.fantasymoguls.com\/originalcontent\/2008\/04\/final-weekend-t.html\">are predicting it could be as high as $100 million<\/a>, but it would have to do extremely well to reach that figure over the 3 day weekend.<\/p>\n<p>That said, tracking and awareness for this film is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/hr\/content_display\/news\/e3ia9aa6fd4930eb095d11e44c0f86bed11\">reportedly huge<\/a> and I think word of mouth from those who see it on the Thursday preview screenings and Friday night showings will convince others to check it out.<\/p>\n<p>One <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slashfilm.com\/2008\/04\/28\/will-grand-theft-auto-4-hurt-iron-mans-box-office\/\">major fly in the ointment<\/a> for Paramount and Marvel is the release today of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Grand_Theft_Auto_4\">Grand Theft Auto 4<\/a> &#8211; which is set to be one of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Grand_Theft_Auto_4#Sales_and_impact\">the biggest selling computer games of all time<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The big worry for Iron Man&#8217;s box office is that the key demographic for the film (young males) will be at home on their consoles all weekend.<\/p>\n<p>It is clearly a concern &#8211; and may lead to studios watching computer game release schedules more closely in future &#8211; but I actually think that demo is going to want to see Iron Man as well.<\/p>\n<p>There is also a hi-tech cool factor to the film that should play well to both a computer savvy audience and the wider public.<\/p>\n<p>Geeks may note that Stark multi-tasks on <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dell\">Dell<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mac_Pro\">Apple workstations<\/a> when creating his suit, although the operating system is one of those magical movie creations that does anything it is asked of.<\/p>\n<p>Less tech-savvy audience members are still going to like the action, SFX and his funny robot assistants.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever happens, Marvel and Paramount should have a huge franchise on their hands.<\/p>\n<p>&gt; <a href=\"http:\/\/ironmanmovie.marvel.com\/\">Official site for Iron Man<\/a><br \/>\n&gt; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.metacritic.com\/film\/titles\/ironman\">Reviews for Iron Man at Metacritic<\/a><br \/>\n&gt; <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Iron_man\">Find out more about the Iron Man character at Wikipedia<\/a><br \/>\n&gt; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slashfilm.com\/2008\/04\/28\/will-grand-theft-auto-4-hurt-iron-mans-box-office\/\">\/Film<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com\/gta-iv\/\">Deadline Hollywood Daily<\/a> on whether or not Grand Theft Auto 4 will affect Iron Man&#8217;s box office<br \/>\n&gt; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.variety.com\/article\/VR1117984627.html?categoryid=2508&amp;cs=1\">Anne Thompson interviews Jon Favreau about the film in Variety<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I saw Iron Man last night and I&#8217;d be very surprised if it doesn&#8217;t open really big this weekend. If you aren&#8217;t familiar with the character, it is one of the few remaining Marvel heroes who hasn&#8217;t made it to the big screen in the last decade. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jnr) is a billionaire [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,8],"tags":[67,72],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}