Iron Weekend?

In what is being called the best reviewed film of the year (thus far), Iron Man is set to open this weekend after years of development.

In 1990, Universal planned to develop Iron Man for the big screen. but after six years 20th Century Fox acquired the rights. Nicolas Cage expressed interest in being cast for the lead role (even though his screen name comes from other Marvel comic character Luke Cage), and later Tom Cruise had expressed interest in producing as well as starring in a film. By 1999, Quentin Tarantino was approached to write and direct Iron Man, but with no deal made, Fox eventually sold the rights to New Line Cinema.

They had worked with author Michael Crichton's researchers to find a grounded realistic way to deal with the armored suit and character, but even after attaching director Nick Cassavetes to the project in 2004, that fell out and the film rights ended back at Marvel in 2006. Jon Favreau became the film's director as part of Marvel Studio's debut, where the comic company financed it's own productions and set up major studio distribution.

Practically two hours of tech porn, the film is likely to outdo the box office for the Batman sequel, and almost certainly the Hulk film. I'll wait out the crowds to catch it, but even with annoying Gywneth Paltrow in it, I'm still planning to check out the movie.

UPDATE: $201 million worldwide for the opening weekend. Second-best premiere ever for a nonsequel. Tenth biggest opening of all time and the fourth biggest for a superhero movie.