Iron Man kicked off the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it’s not for the reason you think.
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Marvel’s Iron Man catapulted the character to superstardom, and though the character has enjoyed popularity in the comics, that wasn’t the reason he was picked as the first hero for the big screen. As a new article in The Wall Street Journal notes, that is solely because kids wanted toys of him.
After Sony took Spider-Man and kickstarted a franchise, Marvel was able to get a sizable loan to start pumping out movies of their own. Ike Perlmutter figured that Marvel wouldn’t make sizable profits from the films themselves, but from the toys they could sell because of it. At this point, Marvel had already licensed out Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four, and was left with characters like Captain America, Thor, the Hulk, and more
So, when it came time to choose which character to bring to theaters first, Marvel held a focus group built around kids. The question they posed to them wasn’t about the hero they would see on screen, but instead, it was which action figure would they prefer to play with.
The resounding answer was Iron Man, and so Marvel moved forward with the longtime Avenger first. The brought in Jon Favreau to direct and Robert Downey Jr. to star in the lead role, and the rest is pretty much history.
Iron Man was produced on a budget of $140 million, and domestically alone it would bring in over $318 million. It would add another $266 million internationally, for a worldwide total of over $585 million. Thanks to a Nick Fury starring after credits scene, the MCU was born, and since Iron Man has remained one of the most profitable franchises ever.
Despite the less than critical praise, Iron Man 2 would bring in $312 million domestically with another $311 million internationally. Worldwide that came to over $623 million, an impressive run to be sure. Iron Man 3 though would blow that out of the water, bringing in over $409 million domestically. It would add a whopping $805 million internationally for a worldwide total of over $1.2 billion.
Marvel’s latest film Black Panther is in theaters now and will be followed by Avengers: Infinity War on May 4. After that, it’s time for Ant-Man and The Wasp, which lands in theaters on July 6.
