“Iron Man 2” may not have set an all-time overall opening weekend record this weekend — $133.6 mil. for the three-day weekend ranks fifth — the movie did create yet another record for IMAX.
The $10.2 million in 181 IMAX domestic theaters surpasses the $8.5 mil. of “Star Trek” exactly one year ago to represent the biggest opening weekend for a 2D movie in IMAX theaters. It also surpasses the $9.5 mil. of all-time overall record-holder “Avatar” in IMAX theaters.
“Iron Man 2” averaged a whopping $56,000 per IMAX theater and collected about 8% of the film’s overall gross from just 181 theaters.
The performance of “Iron Man 2” would seem to indicate that IMAX is not a one-trick 3D pony but that maybe audiences discovered a preference for the giant-screen versions of movies once they experienced the trio of 3D movies at IMAX this year, “Avatar,” “Alice in Wonderland,” and “How to Train Your Dragon.”
— By Scott Hettrick