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All Kim knows is that she wants her Dr. Strange movie

Kim Hollis: Is there any way for a casual movie fan to know ahead of time which Marvel films are going to break out? Is there a logical reason for Iron Man to open $100 million higher than The Punisher and Ghost Rider and Daredevil to open higher by a factor of 10. How is the pecking order determined?

Brandon Scott: Honestly, this is a good question, Kim, as truly the studios don't seem to have a clue. Tapping into a casual fan might not be the right idea but certainly allowing for more fanboy input seems to be working out for those studios that do. I know Favreau blogged regularly for fans and actually listened to their concerns and did his best to ease them while he was making Iron Man, and the results were obviously great. Now as for casual awareness, I am not a comic book guy by any stretch, but I believe Iron Man was a pretty known quantity before the movie. In the case of the others, they are more niche characters that you need to be "in the know", to know. In Ghost Rider and Daredevil's cases, they both cast big stars in the lead roles with Cage and Affleck et. al. For Punisher, I dont think anyone was sure what was taking place. Was this a re-boot? We knew there was another film that wasn't too successful by my recollection, so there wasn't any reason to believe that this would be too successful either. But $4 million is pathetically low.

Les Winan: Quality, quality, quality. Ghost Rider and Daredevil both looked (and were) cheesy and poorly made (aka - The Mark Steven Johnson Effect), so they didn't break out. Iron Man looked high quality, was high quality and, on second viewing - still is high quality. Punisher: War Zone looked like a overly violent, crappy action movie and the reviews agreed. The Punisher, at best, is a peripheral character in the mainstream Marvel Universe and a successful film adaptation of the character would need to have more than simply buckets of blood. However, to be clear - a successful adaptation would in no way involve Mark Steven Johnson.





David Mumpower: My answer would be that the feel is the thing, but even that isn't completely honest. I always felt I had a good handle on Daredevil and Ghost Rider as successful projects and Punisher: War Zone and Elektra as disasters. Iron Man is the one that shocked me every step of the way. At no point during the production did I consider that a $100 million opener or potential $300 million finisher. So, I agree with the point Les is making, at least to an extent. Some projects are doomed from the start while most will fall in that safe range of Marvel/DC performances that we've chronicled several times in recent years.

Then, there is that manner in which perfect projects like Iron Man and The Dark Knight (which is a different studio/comic book company, obviously) that will have everything go right, allowing them to reach the box office stratosphere. Okay, from the Ledger family's perspective, everything didn't go right, but you understand my point. A project like Runaways, glorious though that may be, is naturally limited in its box office range. Scott Pilgrim will be the same way. Meanwhile, Ant-Man is doomed, no matter who directs it. Then, there are situations like Wonder Woman, Captain America, Thor and Green Lantern, films that are probably looking at expected results in the area of The Incredible Hulk. If someone came in and got one (or more) of those right, however, that Iron Man possibility is out there. A director who returns a quality product with its fair share of money shots can change the shape of a franchise, just as Christopher Nolan has done with Batman.

Yes, I know I've meshed together DC and Marvel properties, but the same tenet applies to both groups.

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