This year, with the release of The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises, box office records were broken all across the world and comic fans rejoiced as they were treated to three critically acclaimed blockbusters that all flew past the $500M barrier at the box office, as well as the $1 billion barrier for The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises. So, now we look forward to the future comic book movies that will be hitting screens next year. In this article, I'm going to lay down my box office predictions for Iron Man 3, Man of Steel, The Wolverine and Thor: The Dark World. I also encourage you all to list your predictions in the comments section below.
Iron Man 3 (May 3rd)
Opening Weekend: $160M
Worldwide Total: $850M
What It Has Going For It: After the phenomenal success of Marvel's
The Avengers, the solo characters in the team have a new found popularity in the public eye. Of course, the first two films in the Iron Man franchise were also huge money makers, but nothing like
The Avengers. I'm predicting
The Avengers' success to propel a worldwide total of $850M for the threequel, which is $200M more than
Iron Man 2's total. Another thing the third Iron Man film directed by Shane Black has going for it is that the film will begin the summer movie season, just like
The Avengers did this past May. If you look back at the opening weekend totals for films that launched in the first weekend of May, you will see that these films bring in big bucks so it was very smart of Marvel to secure the May 3rd spot. The star power of Robert Downey Jr. alone gives any film he stars in a tremendous chance of being successful, as he is one of the most popular actors around. I'm predicting a $160M opening for the film, which is $40M more than
Iron Man 2's opening total.
What It Has Going Against It: Like all the films here,
Iron Man 3 could bring in either good or bad word of mouth, if it attracts the latter, it will not be good for IM3 or any of these films. The film will probably stay in the top spot at the box office until May 17th, when
Star Trek 2 arrives in cinemas, which is will likely de-throne the film from the top stop, unless Tyler Perry does that on May 10th, which is doubtful.
Man Of Steel (June 14th)
Opening Weekend: $110M
Worldwide Total: $550M
What It Has Going For It: It's Superman! The ultimate superhero, everybody knows his name, he's a guaranteed money maker, especially when the movies he is in are actually good, so let's first hope
Man of Steel is good, because it is a risk for WB to bring the character back to the big screen after the disappointment that was
Superman Returns. One thing on the film's side is that the marketing for the film (the teaser and SDCC trailer at least) puts some focus on Christopher Nolan and his
The Dark Knight Trilogy, after two films in that trilogy reaching the $1B mark, the mention of Nolan (who is a producer on the flick) and his CBM trilogy is sure to attract some audiences.
Man of Steel is also rumored to be released in IMAX and 3D, so raised ticket prices will help the flick earn more than 2D sales, like all 3D flicks.
What It Has Going Against It: Now, many of you are probably shocked by my low predictions, but bear in mind that
Man of Steel is a reboot.
Batman Begins, while succesful wasn't anywhere close to the success of
The Dark Knight and earlier this year, everybody was predicting
The Amazing Spider-Man to make $1B, now that figure seems unlikely to happen and the film looks to be the lowest grossing Spider-Man film to date. After the disappointing box office total for
Superman Returns, audiences won't be too keen to see a Superman movie straight away. The film won't have much competition on opening weekend, so the #1 spot is expected, but for Week 2, Pixar's
Monsters University hits US theaters, which will likely take the #1 spot from the flick. And then there is the question of, is Superman still relevant on film? We will have to wait and see on that one. Unless the film gets incredibly good word of mouth like
The Avengers or
The Dark Knight, I can only see MOS just breaking the $500M barrier, at best, because of he is one of the most popular Superheroes after all.
The Wolverine (July 26th)
Opening Weekend: $55M
Worldwide Total: $400M
What It Has Going For It: The star power of Hugh Jackman and the character of Wolverine being so popular will definitely bode in the film's favor plus it should make big bucks over in Japan since the story is set there. But asides from that, not much I'm afraid.
What It Has Going Against It: Poor word of mouth stopped
X-Men Origins: Wolverine from being the huge money maker FOX was hoping for. So, hopefully
The Wolverine can actually be good this time. But, a question I would like to ask is, are audiences sick of Wolverine? This will be the fifth time the character has been the focus of an X-Men movie and maybe audiences don't want to see the character once again. Though, the latest X-Men film,
X-Men: First Class made less money than Origins and First Class was the far superior film, so maybe people are not sick of the character. I do think the film will be a success for FOX if it is good or bad, but I also think audiences don't care for the X-Men films as much anymore thanks to the poor
X-Men: The Last Stand and the aforementioned Origins film. There is no word yet on wheter or not
The Wolverine will be in 3D, but given recent FOX blockbusters not being in the format, I'm going to say it won't be in 3D, which will hurt the film.
Thor: The Dark World (November 8th)
Opening Weekend: $95M
Worldwide Total: $620M
What It Has Going For It: Like I said with
Iron Man 3, the success of
The Avengers has made the the characters on the team even more popular, and after the success of the first
Thor movie ($450M worldwide), a big opening is expected for the Alan Taylor-directed sequel. I'm going to go with $95M, which is $30M more than the first Thor film's opening. There isn't too much to say in the film's favor because a lot of what applies for
Iron Man 3 applies here.
What It Has Going Against It: While
Iron Man 3 will probably have two weeks at the top spot,
Thor: The Dark World will definitely lose the top spot to
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire in it's second weekend, that film is expected to have a huge opening, this could mean a serious drop for the fantasy epic which is not good news. Also, Disney's
Frozen hits theaters two weeks after the second Thor film's release, which means another possible drop for the film. Hopefully, if the film is good, it will have strong legs against the competition. I predict
Thor: The Dark World will make around $620M, in the same region of
Iron Man 2's total gross back in 2010.
So there's my predictions for the big Comic Book Movies next year, I hope you enjoyed this read and be sure to list your own predictions in the comments area below! But just remember this list was just for fun, in the end we all win, remember that everybody and be respectful in the comments.