Box Office Report: All Iron Edition

Dude here again. Did you see that movie where the guy in the iron suit beats up a tank? Because looking at these numbers, I'm willing to bet that quite a few of you did. Then again, as I've previously stated, there's nothing wrong about a movie in a giant metal suit fights another guy in a giant robot suit while an electric guitar wails in the background. Nothing wrong with that at all.

This weekend, summer begins, as will the countless weeks of huge openings and steep drop offs. It's just the nature of the business and overcrowding. Let's go to the numbers, shall we? (All in millions, remember, and these are the studio estimates. The actuals will be available on Monday. Just to prove this column wrong).

1. Iron Man (Par) - $100.7, 4105 screens, week 1, $104.2 total

2. Made of Honor (Sony) - $15.5, 2729 screens, week 1, $15.5 total

3. Baby Mama (Uni) - $10.3, 2548 screens, week 2, $32.3 total

4. Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Uni) - $6.1, 2872 screens, week 3, $44.8 total

5. Harold and Kumar... (NL)- $6.0, 2545 screens, week 2, $25.2 total

6. The Forbidden Kingdom (LGF) - $4.2, 2960 screens, week 3, $45.1 total

7. Nim's Island (Fox) - $2.7, 2478 screens, week 5, $42.5 total

8. Prom Night (ScrGms) - $2.5, 2434 screens, week 4, $41.4 total

9. 21 (Sony)- $2.1, 2242 screens, week 6, $79.0 total

10. 88 Minutes (Sony) - $1.6, 1765 screens, week 3, $15.4 total

So those are the numbers, but what do they mean? Well, it means there's a record of some sort here, probably utilizing the phrase "Best Non-Sequel Weekend Not By Spider-Man", or something along those lines. I'm a little ashamed having written that. Regardless, Iron Man made a whole lot of money. That's a serious chunk of change. Whether or not the other summer blockbusters live up to this weekend remains to be seen (Probably won't, save for Indiana Jones and Batman), but this is a grand way to start off the summer movie season.

In an effort to counter-program for audiences who wouldn't want to see a man in a metal suit punching things (Which is probably a very small portion of the populous, let's be honest, who doesn't love a movie with that?), Made of Honor opened up to second place, a mere $85 million less than the number one spot. This would not seem like a well thought out plan, and given that there's other counter programming competition, this one will probably fall by the wayside soon enough.

The holdovers are interesting to look at. Baby Mama, Sarah Marshall, Harold and Kumar... hell, even 88 Minutes is still in the top ten. Wow. That's chilling AND depressing!

Below the top ten, Redbelt, a David Mamet movie about mixed martial arts fighting, opened up on 6 screens to take in $68,600, or roughly about $103 million and change less than Iron Man took in. And Son of Rambow opened up on 5 screens to take in $52,500, which is $16,000 less than the aforementioned $103 million average figure of the Iron guy. Pretty impressive. And a new film from Harmony "Gummo" Korine called Mister Lonely opened on one screen, taking in $19,100, which is pretty impressive for one screen, and the second highest per screen average after the metal one.

And in the "Because It's There" series: In Bruges took in $54,900 on 71, bringing its grand total to $7,488,000 in 13 weeks.

There you have my break down. Next week, a Speed Racer will try to match Iron Man, and will probably not do nearly as well. And there's an Ashton Kutcher movie I've already got my ticket for! (That is a total lie, I want to burn prints of this film).

Until next weekend....

(Jason Vs. His Inner Demons)