The money men at Disney/Marvel will be rubbing their hands in glee this morning, as if they were worried about the hundreds of millions they’ve already poured into the post-Avengers movies, Iron Man 3 has resolutely proved audiences are keen to continue watching the superhero adventures.
While Iron Man 3 couldn’t beat The Avengers $204 million US opening, it still managed the second biggest first weekend ever at the US box office with $175 million. That’s massively ahead of Iron Man 2’s $128 million. Add in an non-US total that’s already topped $500 million, and the film is well on its way to a billion dollar worldwide gross.
Iron Man 3 was the only brand new movie in the top 10, although the Matthew McConaughey starrer Mud did make its first entry, jumping from number 11 to number 7 thanks to an increased screen count.
Take a look below for the US box office top 10 for the weekend of May 3rd-5th.
| Rank | Title | Weekend Gross (millions) | Total Gross to date (millions) |
| 1 | Iron Man 3 | $175.3 | $175.3 |
| 2 | Pain And Gain | $7.6 | $33.9 |
| 3 | 42 | $6.2 | $78.3 |
| 4 | Oblivion | $5.7 | $74.9 |
| 5 | The Croods | $4.2 | $168.7 |
| 6 | The Big Wedding | $3.8 | $14.2 |
| 7 | Mud | $2.1 | $5.1 |
| 8 | Oz the Great And Powerful | $1.8 | $228.5 |
| 9 | Scary Movie 5 | $1.4 | $29.6 |
| 10 | The Place Beyond The Pines | $1.2 | $18.6 |
Michael Bay has proved he can still pull in the punters away from massive robots, as his Dwayne Johnson and Mark Wahlberg starrer, Pain And Gain, topped the US box office with $20 million in its first weekend. Although that’s a lot less than Bay’s Transformers movies opened to, that’s only to be expected from an R-rated thriller with a dash of comedy. And as it only cost $26 million to make, it’s likely headed for a healthy profit.
In the last few years it’s felt like Tom Cruise’s ‘king of the A-list’ crown has started to wobble, with audiences only really seeming to want to see him in Mission: Impossible movies. However it appears they don’t mind him in a bit of sci-fi either, as Oblivion has opened to a pretty good $38 million, Cruise’s highest non Mission: Impossible debut since War Of The Worlds (and his fifth highest ever).
It’s rare that two movies are released in the same week in the US and box office watchers seem to have no idea how well either of them will do, or which would end up at the top of the box office (if either). However that was true of 42 and Scary Movie 5, with wildly differing estimates of how well they’d do in their run up to release, with some even suggesting both would end behind The Croods in their first weekend.
Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen have joined the cast of Scary Movie 5 for Dimension Films and director Malcolm D. Lee, at least if