Probably even your mother knows right now that Iron Man 2 is looking to be the biggest movie of the summer. When the first film debuted in 2008 it was overshadowed later that year by The Dark Knight, but according to The Los Angeles Times, the sequel is looking to open so big that it could shatter that film's opening weekend record of $158.4 million.
After all, the first film opened at $98 million, and that was when most of the world didn't know a thing about Iron Man, and barely even knew who that Robert Downey Jr. guy was (remember, Tropic Thunder came later that summer). This year Iron Man 2 is poised as the movie to beat, with even women over 30 "strongly" interested in the film, and presumably Mickey Rourke fans losing their minds in excitement.
Of course, writing a piece predicting a film's box office a month before it opens is a little bit crazy, but you can't deny that Iron Man 2 has reached an insane level of awareness already, and unless they release clips revealing Whiplash's cockatoo as the real villain, I can't imagine that changing. The Dark Knight's record wasn't bound to last forever, but seriously, how satisfying would it be to see it broken this year by a film that's quite specifically not in 3D? For the sake of Hollywood as a whole, I think we need to make this happen.
