Ten years ago, on May 2, the cinematic world was introduced to the Iron Man, aka Tony Stark.
When Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) released their first superhero movie – Iron Man on May 2, 2008, they didn’t expect it to turn into such a huge franchise.
The character of Iron Man was originally created in 1963, but the movie shifted the hero’s origin story to modern times.
Sharing a behind-the-scene image, Tony Stark took to the Twitter.
Iron Man – the self–defined genius, billionaire, playboy and philanthropist enthralled audiences in the very first installment with Robert Downey Jr aka Tony Stark rides in his Fun-vee in a desert.
No can either hate or love the stylish, super cool hero or the proud braggart, but you can’t simply ignore him!
Downey’s charisma and charm as Tony Stark carried Iron Man to critical acclaim and mainstream audience crossover success, firmly imprinting the actor’s performance onto the character – not just in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, but in Marvel Comics, as well.
Marking Iron Man was a risk that time. Was it really worthwhile?
The world was going crazy over the recent release “Marvel Avengers: Infinity War” which give fans laughs and heartbreak right up until it’s shocking cliffhanger ending, where Thanos clicks his fingers, annihilating half the universe in a second.
A whole host of our favourite heroes crumble to dust Spider-man stumbles slightly. Yes! Sadly, but Peter Parker succumbs to mad Titan’s power, fading away from existence as he pleads for Stark’s help. “I don’t feel so good Mr Stark. I don’t want to go, I don’t want to die Tony. I’m sorry Mr Stark,” before he slips away from in existence in Tony’s arms.
With such a huge cinematic experience, it’s very hard to imagine a time when there wasn’t at least one MCU movie in theaters.
In 2008, Marvel was primarily known as a comics company that had to partner with studios to produce films. Some such as Blade, X-Men, and Spider-Man, became huge hits, whereas, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, and Ghost Rider got mixed bags.
The comic-book publisher, which emerged from bankruptcy when it merged with Toy Biz in the 1990s, sold off the film rights to many of its top characters, such as Spider-Man and the X-Men, years before it began making its own movies. In the mid-2000s, Marvel decided to get into the movie business for itself.
But for Marvel, which had no studio of its own at the time and had been forced to license out its properties and creative control to produce Elektra and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
From the film’s negative pickup distribution deal, ensuring that the production company covered its own costs to make the film to the financing pieced together using superheroes as security, everything about making Iron Man was risky. However, its proved to be worth the risk!
How Iron Man fared at the Box-Office?
The budget of the movie was around USD 140 million.
- Opening Weekend: $98,618,668
- Domestic Total: $318,412,101
- Worldwide Total: $585,174,222
(Numbers and Data taken from Collider.com)
It was the second-biggest opening weekend ever for a non-sequel, behind Spider-Man.
The film boosted Marvel’s revenue nearly 40% to $676 million in 2008. The release even renewed interest in Iron Man comics, with total sales rising 22% in 2008 to about 47,900 copies per month on average, following seven straight years of declines, according to Comichron data.
The following year, Disney bought Marvel for $4 billion.
Revenues from the toy and merchandising space…
Iron Man action figures made by Hasbro (also the maker of Star Wars merchandises), which has licensed the rights to make Marvel toys since 2006, has consistently brought in an average of $18.7 million in global retail sales from 2011-2016.
According to the NPD Group, toys based on Marvel properties garnered around $350 million in the US alone in 2017. Disney, Marvel’s parent, was the top global licensor of 2017, with $53 billion in sales of licensed products.
Twitterati recall how Tony Stark became their favourite superhero…
After his initial introduction in the movie, fans recalled how the story paved an incredible journey for Iron Man — to fight against evil forces and save the world ten years back.
Here are some of the reactions:
Avengers: Infinity War is riding on a wave of huge box-office collections globally. In the US, the movie has minted $300 million. In terms of global collections, the movie has already made $800 million.
The movie in Net figures have managed to rake in Rs 146.91 crore at the Indian box office, but in terms of gross figures, the Avengers Infinity War has collected Rs 188.35 crore.
With the steady box office revenues and huge fan base, the movie is expected to the $1-billion mark soon.
But, we can say that without Iron Man’s success, we wouldn’t have the crushing thrill ride of Avengers: Infinity War. Isn’t it?
