Universal has scored two $100-million hits so far this summer: The Incredible Hulk ($129 million) and Wanted ($112 million), and this weekend Hellboy II: The Golden Army opened at number one with an estimated $35.9 million. And the pics scored strong reviews as well: Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy sequel earned 88% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and looks likely to also score more than $100 million, says Fantasy Moguls. (The Hulk came in at more modest 68, and Wanted at 72.)
Next weekend, while The Dark Knight will score the number one slot, Abba musical Mamma Mia! is expected to open well. And in August, there's still The Mummy 3: The Tomb of the Golden Emperor, which should easily pass the $100-million mark.
According to ace marketer-turned-co-chief of the studio Marc Shmuger, each of these pics has a distinct look, feel and audience appeal. Not one of these movies is like any other movie in the current marketplace. "They all know exactly what they are," he says, "and who they're for."
This helps to cut through the other lookalike pictures and pop the movies out. Could anyone not pay attention to the crazy green giant Hulk, Jolie and those curving bullets in Wanted, or bright red muscle-bound Hellboy, with his cut-off horns? And there's certainly nothing else in the market like Mamma Mia!, which opened well overseas this weekend.
A key story of summer 2008 is the rise of Marvel Entertainment. Now in charge of its own destiny with Iron Man and Incredible Hulk, the company is actively developing its own characters for movies down the line. And execs are willing to defend Marvel's long-term interests, whether that means negotiating tough with Jon Favreau on directing the Iron Man sequel or telling Edward Norton that some of his favorite scenes in Incredible Hulk will have to wait for the DVD.
At the Hellboy II premiere, Favreau told me he that while he was planning to do Iron Man 2 and wanted to do The Avengers as well, Marvel was unlikely to wait for him to do both. The "official" announcement will likely wait for Comic-Con.
Now execs at DC Comics are taking note. Long more passive in their relationship to their films, there are signs of change, reports David Cohen. Still up in the air are such DC projects as the next Batman and Superman movies (how about those Louis Leterrier rumors?) and Justice League, not to mention the long-in-the-works Wonder Woman.
Two playboy superheroes with sidekicks and gadgets and comics fans are duking it out at the summer b.o.: DC's Batman and Marvel's Iron Man. Watch the two action heroes take each other on:
Yes, Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury is in Iron Man--his scene runs after all the credits. Marvel withheld it from press screening prints. I was visiting the Balboa Theater in San Francisco this weekend, where theater manager Gary Meyer (also co-director of the Telluride Film Fest) was having some ILM folks talk about the effects afterwards, and I saw the clip setting up the next movie, which will also, I am told, give Stark sidekick Terrence Howard's Rhodey the chance to morph into War Machine. Marvel is going full steam ahead on their next batch of pics, including Iron Man II, but may have to pay Downey a little extra to get him back--I had understood that he signed for three pics.
Demand is so over-heated for Iron Man--which word is, may actually be good--that Paramount is planning to play the game of debuting the film the night before, on May 1. The Arclight in L.A. is selling tickets to a Thursday night midnight show. At the same time the studio is worried that the film may be overhyped, so it's trying to keep most media breaks closer to release and not overheat expectations that this will be one BEHEMOTH of an opening. If Paramount says $45 million, expect as much as $70 million. Fantasy Moguls' Steve Mason reports that tracking is pointing toward a huge Iron Man opening of $60 million plus.
Here's one example of who's coming out of Iron Man way ahead: Robert Downey Jr., who talks to EW here.
Those of us who saw Paramount's first Iron Man materials at Comic-Con--and witnessed the hordes lining up just to see the damned costume unveiled--don't need to be convinced that this picture will be a summer boxoffice juggernaut. It should easily pass $200 million. Will it get to $300 million is another question.
Why?
1. NEW ACTION HERO. This may be the robust male action fantasy hero that we've been waiting for. A new contemporary complex male who isn't Batman or Superman. (Face it, they've been around for a while.) Check out the latest clip and our photo gallery. Who wouldn't want to fly around like that? While Iron Man comicbook fans are legion, this is a new modern movie hero who kicks ass. And he's not a nice guy.
2. NEW STAR. Robert Downey Jr. has reached that magic moment when an edgy up-and-coming character actor ages into a certain masculine gravitas. No one ever doubted Downey's gift of gab, comedy and sexy appeal. But now Downey seems to have put his demons behind him. The one-two punch of actioner Iron Man and the late summer comedy Tropic Thunder may push him into real movie stardom.
3. SMART DIRECTOR. Jon Favreau is a gifted filmmaker with real chops. He can do character comedy: Elf, Swingers. He's smart. I don't care if Zathura tanked. It was a delightful smart fast-moving family adventure comedy. Selling it as a sequel to Jimanji was a mistake. But studios are loathe to sell originals and the movie never would have been made otherwise.
4. FUN MARVEL TOYS. My Iron Man action figure (above) is the envy of the office. (Launching repulsor projectile!) There's a lot more where that came from.
5. FEMME APPEAL. Add Gwenyth Paltrow to the mix, and I see a three quadrant movie. Who's left out? Older women. But I really want to see the movie. So who knows?
6. ORIGINAL. While Paramount can sell the movie to Iron Man comics fans, it is not a sequel, remake or retread of any kind. It is the presumable launch of a franchise. Every franchise had to start somewhere, as an original. They're harder to market, but if they work, you're off.
7. EARLY SUMMER LAUNCH. Iron Man opens wide on May 2 (basically the Spider Man date) at the start of the summer, when audiences are starving for a big popcorn picture. Things haven't gotten crowded yet. It should have a wide open playing field. Made of Honor will get the girls. Summer blockbuster sequel Narnia: Prince Caspian opens May 16, and Indy 4 May 22. (UPDATE: The Latin American press have seen the pic. Nothing yet for us stateside.)
While Comic-Cons past have heralded the advent of such future blockbusters as 300 and Superman Returns, this year only Jon Favreau’s new Marvel entry starring Robert Downey, Jr. as the mighty Iron Man roused the fan hordes in the 6000-seat Hall H to rise up and give a standing O. The crowds also responded well to Pixar's Wall-E, from Finding Nemo creator Andrew Stanton, about a robot trash compactor left behind on earth, who is being "voiced" by sound wizard Ben Burtt, who created the whistle-language for Star Wars' R2D2.
Many of the big fanboy titles had no footage to show because they were just heading into production, from 300 director Zach Snyder’s The Watchmen, an adaptation of the Alan Moore graphic classic, to Edward Norton’s page-one rewrite of Marvel’s latest iteration of The Hulk. Snyder, Norton and Favreau all promised fans to stay true to the spirit of the source material. "We're not going to make it accessible to teenyboppers for marketing reasons," said Snyder, who is setting “The Watchmen” in the R-rated 80s and drawing his way through the novel, shot by shot. "It doesn't feel PG-13. It makes sense that now it's a period film. It has resonance, it's separated from the Cold War, it's almost cool to go back."
Snyder had hoped to announce his Watchmen cast at the Con, but was scooped by the press by several days. "We have real actors for this movie," he said. "This movie has no stars in it! 300 had no stars in it either. A couple people saw it." The actors will start out young and evolve into old age with the help of CGI, he said. “Technology is on my side.” Billy Crudup, Patrick Wilson and Jason Patric didn’t show, but Jackie Earle Haley and Malin Akerman were on hand. The crowd in Hall H applauded when The Hulk producer Gale Ann Hurd assured them that this time--as opposed to Ang Lee’s 2003 Hulk, which did not score a bullseye with fans--The Hulk would remain the same size throughout the film. Marvel’s latest design for The Hulk seemed to play for fans.
Disney’s Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian panel promised a deeper, richer, more action-packed realistic take on the next installment of the fantasy series, which will now unspool at the rate of one a year. (It will be interesting to see how much interest there is in the lesser known books that don't feature the four kids.) Audiences were wowed by an well-paced animatic of the capture of a castle featuring airborne sword fights.
On the other hand, New Line Cinema’s bid for a new fantasy franchise, Chris Weitz’s adaptation of The Golden Compass, starring Nicole Kidman, Dakota Blue Richards and many CG polar bears, yielded a more muted response. Kidman keeps rolling her tongue around something called "the Aletheometer lethiometer." Like Stardust, The Golden Compass features flying ships and witches. But it also looks all too familiar...
While Twentieth Century Fox cancelled its show-and-tell, citing materials that were too hard-R for a family-friendly event (which nonetheless showed plenty of violent, edgy material), the studio did send a convoy of trucks to promote the movie Jumper emblazoned with black-and-white billboards reading “If you were a jumper you’d be home now.”
Short action clips from Shoot ‘Em Up, starring Clive Owen as a Chow Yun Fat-inspired gunfighter toting a baby amid blood-splattering mayhem, played well in Hall H; the full-length movie screened Thursday night to a wide range of reactions. The pic clearly plays best for hard-core action fans with a taste for a taboo-busting, hard-edged R. (A women gives birth during a gun battle; when the baby cries, Owen shoves the infant onto her breast to shut him up. And there's more.) Storyboard-artist-turned director Michael Davis thanked Angry Films for rescuing him from oblivion after 35 screenplays just as he was about to give up his filmmaking career. Owen thanked Davis "for making an original movie in a time of sequels," he said.
Here's Variety's review.
Neil Marshall’s viral thriller Doomsday generated some fan heat, along with Rob Zombie’s reimagining of Halloween, the graphic novel-based 30 Days of Night, a hard-R return to killer vampires who terrorize an isolated town in bleak midwinter, and writer-director Frank Darabont’s reunion with Stephen King on the $17-million “The Mist.” But many other horror titles fell flat, including Warners’ Japanese remake One Missed Call, the conclusion of Paul Anderson's zombie trilogy, Resident Evil: The Extinction, and Silver’s The Invasion, yet another version of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
“Comic-Con elder” Darabont, who started coming to The Con as a teenager in 1973 when it was held for 1000 people at the El Cortez Hotel, had a good time this trip. “Every year it’s gotten crazier and bigger.”
Word spread through the Con that Robert Downey Jr. and Jon Favreau would sign Iron Man stuff for the fans at 1:30 PM Saturday after the unveiling of the new Iron Man costume (there are two looks in the clips we saw in Hall H, early first stage clunky iron armor and later flying suit, which this one resembles). There was a mob of onlookers as the director, star and FX master Stan Winston posed for photographers. Erin was close to the wooden crate; I was aiming my Nikon at a screen farther away.
[Posted by Erin Maxwell]
Things I learned while trying to snap a pic of Iron Man:
1. Sometimes being only five feet tall kinda bites.
2. Most Comic-Con attendees will let you in at the front of the line if you ask nicely.
3. Camera phones can be more reliable than normal cameras.
I would like to thank the nice gentleman who helped me off the floor when the mad rush of Marvel fans knocked me to the ground. Thank you, sir. I have never met a finer man. And yes, I meant it when I said that I liked your outfit. You make that Punisher costume work for you.
Universal has scored two $100-million hits so far this summer: The Incredible Hulk ($129 million) and Wanted ($112 million), and this weekend Hellboy II: The Golden Army opened at number one with an estimated $35.9 million. And the pics scored strong reviews as well: Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy sequel earned 88% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and looks likely to also score more than $100 million, says Fantasy Moguls. (The Hulk came in at more modest 68, and Wanted at 72.)
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