‘Iron Man 3’ Box Office: Second Best Opening of All-Time

Iron Man 3” s $68.3 million opening day ranked as the eighth best all-time, and now the film has landed the second best three-day opening of all-time with $175.3 million, second only to The Avengers. In fact, to look at the top ten all-time opening weekends, it’s quite obvious certain franchises dominate this list with three Marvel features, two of Christopher Nolan‘s Batman films, three Twilight pics, one lone Harry Potter film and I think it’s safe to say once The Hunger Games: Catching Fire arrives later this year it too will have two films on the list.

1. The Avengers – $207,438,708
2. Iron Man 3 – $175,300,000
3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 – $169,189,427
4. The Dark Knight Rises – $160,887,295
5. The Dark Knight – $158,411,483
6. The Hunger Games – $152,535,747
7. Spider-Man 3 – $151,116,516
8. The Twilight Saga: New Moon – $142,839,137
9. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 – $141,067,634
10. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 – $138,122,261

Adding to Iron Man 3‘s domestic take, it’s international cume is up to $504.8 million so far bringing its worldwide total to $680.1 million in just over a week. After only three days it is also the #2 film of 2013 behind Oz The Great and Powerful, which currently sits at $228 million.

Looking over Thursday’s box office predictions, Laremy was high with his $186.8 million prediction in a weekend where the tracking was actually pretty close to spot-on at $174 million. Looking over reader predictions, it was Steve Stager with the closest prediction at $175.5 million.

The question now is how will Iron Man 3 perform in its second weekend as it faces off against The Great Gatsby. With an “A” CinemaScore things look good. The Avengers only dipped 50% in its second weekend, but I’d argue Dark Shadows didn’t offer the same kind of competition as Gatsby will for IM3, especially since Gatsby will probably be taking some of Iron Man‘s 3D theaters as it targets 3,350+ theaters overall.

In limited release, Millennium enjoyed a solid weekend beginning with The Iceman in four theaters where it brought in $93,100 ($23,287 per theater) and What Maisie Knew opening with $23,248 in only one theater.

As I already said, next weekend will see the release of Baz Luhrmann‘s The Great Gatsby alongside Tyler Perry Presents Peeples in approximately 2,000 theaters and the limited release of Aftershock in approximately 100 theaters. Any of you care to place some early predictions for Iron Man 3‘s second weekend and Gatsby‘s opening?