by Christopher Freeburn | May 6, 2013 10:15 am
[1]The third installment of Disney‘s (NYSE:DIS[2]) Iron Man franchise went straight to the top of the U.S. box office this weekend[3] and came close to setting a record.
Twelve days into its worldwide release, Iron Man 3 has generated $680.1 million in ticket sales round the world. That includes $175.3 million in the U.S and Canada over the weekend. Only 2012’s The Avengers had a bigger box office first weekend, Bloomberg notes.
Iron Man 3 has now surpassed the total box office receipts of either of the earlier installments and is projected to make $400 million in domestic ticket sales and $1.3 billion worldwide. Disney has leveraged the popularity of Marvel superheroes, building a multi-film strategy in which one movie supports another. Disney acquired the comic-book company for $4.2 billion in 2009.
Analysts say that Iron Man 3′s strong start augurs well for the summer movie season, which features a number of upcoming big-budget blockbusters, including Viacom‘s (NASDAQ:VIAB[4]) new Star Trek installment and Time Warner‘s (NYSE:TWX[5]) Superman-reboot Man of Steel.
Last week, Iron Man 3 set box office records in China, taking in $21.5 million on its opening day[6].
Despite the weekend’s hefty box office haul, shares of Disney dipped slightly in Monday morning trading.
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