It is official. Iron Man 3 has become a billion-dollar movie thanks in part to the coattails it rode off The Avengers one year ago. The standalone franchise has grown in popularity by leaps and bounds on both the domestic and foreign fronts, creating a double-edged sword of expanding box office dollars. Its budget came in at around $200 million the last two trips out, but with the most-recent success it would seem that attempts to lower the costs of production going forward would prove trivial. Marvel Studios actually wanted to cut this one down to $140 million for fear Iron Man 2 crippled the series’ potential, only to change their minds once their ensemble piece changed the equation. It was a hasty call that proved to be well made.
The next trip out for the Disney-owned studio will be Thor: The Dark World in November which nobody truly believes is capable of this size gross. Its first installment only made $450 million; however, Iron Man 2 only ended up at $600 million. Who are we to speculate that Chris Hemsworth’s next blockbuster would perform worse than Skyfall did in the previous November. Its competition will be just as tough as the foes Iron Man 3 is facing this May as Ender’s Game and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire will bookend the Alan Taylor feature’s release.
