Iron Man 3 has only been out for 5 days internationally, but it has already grossed an estimated $195.3 million. For comparison, the Avengers made $185.1 million in the same time period. However, Keith Simanton, the managing editor of IMDB, doesn't think that Iron Man 3 can beat the Avengers: "It's a dark film. I think that's going to prevent it from being in the same $1.5 billion range as The Avengers."
But Simanton did have positive news for the threequel: the early numbers for Iron Man 3 show that "this is not being viewed as an Iron Man sequel as much as an Avengers sequel." Iron Man 2 was not received nearly as well overseas as The Avengers, and a closer connection between Iron Man 3 and the Avengers will likely translate to higher box office numbers. It will be interesting to see if other Phase 2 movies such as Thor: The Dark World benefit equally from a connection with The Avengers.
Simanton predicts that Iron Man 3 will make about $600 million internationally and $400 domestically, which could still be enough to propel it past the coveted 1 billion dollar mark.
Iron Man 3 hasn't only been popular in paying markets, though. Iron Man 3 is reportedly the 3rd most downloaded movie on BitTorrent last week, despite despite being a bootleg recording made with a camcorder.
For more information on Iron Man 3's box office potential, follow the link.