‘Iron Man’ Impressive in Opening Weekend

[Woodmonkey]

‘Iron Man’ Impressive in Opening Weekend

LOS ANGELES — “Iron Man” blasted into the box office stratosphere over the weekend, selling an estimated $100.8 million in tickets at North American theaters and almost certainly establishing a new movie franchise for Marvel Entertainment.

“The word of mouth through the weekend was tremendous,” said David Maisel, chairman of Marvel Studios, the New York entertainment company’s newly created film production unit. “I can’t think of a better start.”

Including international sales “Iron Man” grossed an estimated $201 million, according to Paramount Pictures, which distributed the $135 million film. The totals were slightly short of first-weekend sales for “Spider-Man,” the 2002 blockbuster that holds the record for the top nonsequel superhero movie opening.

Hollywood urgently needed some good news. A winter box office malaise has stretched into spring, dragging ticket sales for the year down 3 percent through Sunday compared with the same period in 2007. The industry is also girding for a potential strike by the Screen Actors Guild, which is locked in plodding negotiations with studios over matters like payments for the distribution of movies on the World Wide Web.

“Iron Man,” directed by Jon Favreau, shouldered the extra weight of kicking off Hollywood’s crucial summer season. Stuffed with big-budget movies, the four-month period between the first weekend in May and Labor Day typically accounts for more than 40 percent of annual ticket sales, according to Media by Numbers, a box office tracking firm.

Studios and theater owners were looking to “Iron Man” for clues about whether declining consumer confidence would keep moviegoers at home. Although movies are relatively inexpensive entertainment — and have even benefited from economic slowdowns in the past — prices for tickets and concessions have risen steadily over the years, prompting worries.

“What I think this says about the marketplace is that if we make really entertaining movies, people will show up for them,” said Rob Moore, president for marketing at Paramount. Hed said “Iron Man” delivered the best opening weekend of any live-action film in Paramount’s history.

Still, establishing box office momentum could be difficult for the studios. Unlike last summer, when Hollywood offered up mostly sequels, this year the big bets are on originals. Total domestic ticket sales for the weekend stood at $165 million, a 13 percent decline from the same weekend last year, when “Spider-Man 3” opened.

Next up is “Speed Racer,” a Warner Brothers movie based on the 1960s-era cartoon. The picture, which opens Friday, has posed substantial marketing challenges because of, among other things, its over-the-top visual style.

There are other questions waiting to be answered as the studios roll out their summer slates. Can the up-and-coming star Shia LaBeouf turn out young women for the latest “Indiana Jones” installment? Does Angelina Jolie, starring in “Wanted” as an assassin, still have the drawing power to open a big movie? Is the Pixar brand powerful enough to sell “Wall-E,” a robot romance that has almost no dialogue?

A variety of factors propelled “Iron Man” to strong results, box office analysts said. Among them: pent-up demand in the marketplace for an event movie and overwhelmingly positive reviews from film critics. A megawatt marketing campaign from Paramount helped create interest in a film about one of the comic book world’s lesser-known characters.

Casting was also crucial. “Iron Man” is the story of Tony Stark, a beyond-brilliant engineer who builds a metal suit that allows him to fly and fight bad guys. Marvel’s decision to cast the seasoned actor Robert Downey Jr. in the title role helped the movie woo adults who might skip a superhero movie, at least on a frenzied opening weekend.

Marvel and Paramount are already discussing a sequel, although the upstart Marvel studio will have a much more expensive project on its hands should that come about. Mr. Favreau, for instance, has not yet signed on for a second installment.

The weekend’s only other movie of significance, Sony’s “Made of Honor,” ran a distant No. 2 but was not trampled as many had predicted. That $40 million comedy, staring Patrick Dempsey as a guy in love with an engaged woman, sold an estimated $15.5 million in tickets at North American theaters.

Two holdover comedies from Universal also performed remarkably well against the competition. “Baby Mama,” starring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, earned $10.3 million (for a total of $33.2 million), while “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” the latest from the producer Judd Apatow, earned $6.1 million ($44.8 million overall).

Rounding out the weekend’s Top 5 was “Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay” (Warner Brothers), with $6 million ($25.3 million overall).

The Source

[Snowden]

'Iron Man' Hero Personifies Modern Military Contractors

By Jeremy Hsu, Staff Writer
posted: 02 May 2008 12:00 pm ET


Tony Stark suited up as Iron Man. Credit: Marvel/Paramount

When superhero Tony Stark isn't donning his Iron Man armor to personally rough up villains, he's pitching the U.S. military on new gadgets to fight the War on Terror.

"They say the best weapon is one you never have to fire," Stark tells a group of military officers in the "Iron Man" film that opens today. "I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once."

The Marvel comic book character's suit embodies a futuristic technology that may enhance human capabilities in war, but the current battlefield belongs to a growing swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and robots that could someday give even Iron Man a run for his money. UAVs clocked more than 500,000 hours in the air by the beginning of 2008, performing many of the tasks normally done by piloted aircraft.

"There's a scene of Iron Man flying against [F-22] Raptors," said Pete Singer, Brookings Institute defense expert and author of the forthcoming book "Wired for War." "Those are among the last generation of manned fighter jets."

Someone still needs to develop and sell those manned or unmanned technologies, and that's where Stark might be the new face of military contractors. Private individuals and companies might not be as visible as UAVs soaring above the skies of Afghanistan and Iraq, yet their role has grown just as dramatically during the recent conflicts.


Tony Stark tests the technology for his Iron Man suit. Credit: Marvel/Paramount

Howard Hughes, the original Halliburton

Tony Stark, played by Robert Downey Jr., is based partly on real-life wealthy industrialist Howard Hughes, who lent his eccentric genius and financial resources to oddball U.S. military efforts during World War II and the Cold War.

Hughes built and piloted many of his own aircraft, including the Hughes H-1 Racer that he flew to set a transcontinental airspeed record in 1937.

"He was really doing this sort of thing even before there was a military-industrial complex," said Alex Roland, military historian at Duke University. He compared Hughes to a "one-man Halliburton empire," referring to one of the largest defense contractors currently working in Iraq.

The military-industrial complex really took off in the 1950s as the United States sought new weapons and technologies for its growing military, which gave Hughes and other military contractors a market to sell everything from helicopters to satellites.

Yet some Hughes projects contracted by the military simply fizzled. The all-wood "Spruce Goose" remains the largest plane ever built; it was meant to carry troops safely across the Atlantic during World War II, but was completed after the war and flew just once. Another effort that foundered involved building a secret ship that could raise a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine from the bottom of the Pacific.

Such doomed investments were just one symptom of the troubles that plagued the early military-industrial complex. A "revolving door" allowed military officers to join companies that they had just awarded defense contracts to, while private executives went to work for the Pentagon and funneled contracts back to their companies, Roland said. He added that tightened regulations now prevent many of those earlier abuses of the system.


Iron Man in flight. Credit: Marvel/Paramount

Cycles of military spending

Still, those powerful interests combined with the cry of "how much is enough for defense?" during the Cold War to make a seemingly irresistible call for bigger and pricier weapons, according to Roland.

And the military-industrial complex remains hungry today for increased funding. Private companies are eager for contracts, the military looks for next-generation weapons, and some in Congress jockey for new defense-related jobs for their districts.

"That's how Dad did it, that's how America does it and it's worked out pretty well so far," Stark says in the movie.

Roland observed that U.S. military spending has gone up and down in cycles largely unrelated to the constant pressure from the military-industrial complex, with spikes in 1940, 1960, 1980 and again during the Bush administration.

The trouble arises when the sense of national urgency that accompanies those spikes can lead to relaxed government oversight, just as millions of new defense dollars suddenly become available and companies rush in. Such has been the case with the latest boost in military spending, Roland said.

However, there's now the additional twist of reduced competition among contractors.

"From 1986 to 2006, the number of Pentagon prime contractors competing on major defense programs went from twenty to six," said Singer, the Brookings Institute defense expert. "There's often just two going at it, competing on both sides of [contract] bundles, so that they win no matter what."

'Minimal competition'

That reduced competition among major contractors may contribute to problems of inefficiency, Singer said.

Budget overruns and delays for weapon systems appear to be the rule. The Government Accountability Office found that 95 major defense systems exceeded their budgets by $295 billion collectively in a March 2008 report, including an upgraded version of the F-22 Raptors that duel with Stark in "Iron Man."

But even noncompetitive, no-bid contracts are "perfectly legitimate under certain circumstances," said James Jay Carafano, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and retired U.S. Army Lt. Colonel. The U.S. military awarded such contracts to get on a war footing quickly and invade Iraq.

Now that U.S. efforts have switched to providing long-term security and reconstruction, though, experts say contracts should be more competitive to boost efficiency.

Corruption and waste among contractors and local officials in Iraq caused the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction to deem the problem the "second insurgency" in 2007, according to the Associated Press.

"There's minimal competition with very few eyes and ears watching the contracting," Singer noted. "Should you be surprised to be billed for one hundred guys working on a site, if you never visited to see if there were even ten?"

Singer blamed the government for acting like a "stupid client." Carafano agreed, adding that the sudden flood of military spending resulted in poorly defined contracts hastily given out.

"It's not about greedy contractors, it's not about backdoor deals, and it's not about politicians making sure certain companies get contracts," Carafano said. "It's about the government not being a very good customer."


Tony Stark at his company, Stark Industries. Credit: Marvel/Paramount

Who is on the front lines?

Whatever happens, no one questions that the United States could not fight a war now without outsourcing to military contractors.

"Do you always get value for your money? Not always, but generally, yes you do," Carafano said. "These wars wouldn't be possible without private sector support."

That means military contractors have also expanded beyond just selling military hardware. They now run supply lines, feed troops, build base camps, consult on strategy and even fight as private security forces.

"Companies don't just build the weapons of war, they provide the personnel to use it," Singer said. "They provide the service side of war. That's a pretty historic shift."

The change amounted to more than 180,000 Americans, Iraqis and other nationals working as private contractors in Iraq as of July 2007, exceeding the 163,000 U.S. troops there at the time. Some of those contractors necessarily carry guns in their line of work.

Movie audiences probably won't be troubled by Iron Man dealing out vigilante justice, but experts question how to hold military contractors accountable for their actions if things go badly. Private individuals work in a murky area where no law seems to apply, leading to incidents such as the shooting of Iraqi civilians by guards working for the private military company Blackwater.

"Every human endeavor has bad apples, and that's true whether you're talking about the real world or a comic book world," Singer said. "But do you have a system in place to ensure that the bad apples are punished?"

There's no need to worry about Tony Stark, though. He is, by cinematic definition, one of the good guys.


'Iron Man' Hero Personifies Modern Military Contractors | LiveScience