Sony/Columbia’s reboot of the Marvel Franchise The Amazing Spider-Man appears to have been a good play, with the superhero movie taking in $21M on Friday and is looking at a $65M weekend, and since it opened strongly on Tuesday before the holiday it likely going to top $140M total through Sunday.

Meanwhile, Disney/Pixar’s Brave, in it’s third weekend of release, is looking at a $24M weekend, taking third behind Universal’s R-rated Ted ($36M). Although from my ears buzz on Brave has been light, it’s a cute fantasy mother/daughter story but with enough elements to interest the boys as well.

In this first official image from the set of Iron Man 3, you can see that Tony Stark has an increasing number of power suits…we count 7, not including parts. It will be interesting to see what each of them is best used for – other than just for style…

As the Superhero Steamroller called The Avengers rolls over everything, taking in another $55 million in it’s third weekend and burying Battleship, which may be on it’s way to become Universal’s John Carter (both of which starred Taylor Kitsch…hmmm…hope he isn’t invested in Facebook stock…), Marvel/Disney wants to ride the high and has infused the just-started Iron Man 3 with an additional $60 million in it’s budget…raising the total to $200 million, according to Latino-Review. That’s a lot of explosions and devastation…no idea exactly what they’ll spend it on, I just hope they do so wisely, and not on Tony Stark’s Scotch budget.

To absolutely no one’s surprise, Disney CEO Bob Iger announced during today’s quarterly earnings call that a sequel to mega-hit The Avengers is already in development, but skipped over any details. He also re-iterated that Iron Man 3, Thor 2 and Captain America 2 are still on schedule.

He also mentioned that Disney’s Imagineers are also stepping up plans for Marvel-themed attractions for it’s DisneyParks division. However, Universal currently holds the rights to most of the top-line Marvel characters in the US east of the Mississippi for it’s theme parks in Orlando – so don’t expect anything other than merchandise to show up at Walt Disney World any time soon.

Eliza Dushku will take on the role of She-Hulk in the upcoming series, Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.…but before your chants of “Rawr!” go overboard, this is an animated series, and she is only providing her voice! Although, I can say, the preview image of She-Hulk is Rawr-worthy…in addition, Adrian Pasdar (Heroes), who voices Iron Man for Ultimate Spider-Man, says that his Iron Man will also make a guest appearance.

Yahoo! Movies recently interviewed Mark Webb, the director of the upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man, the reboot of the Marvel franchise starring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone and premieres June 30th.

On Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone’s instant chemistry:

“We screen tested them together, and she’s very funny and really quick and snappy. I remember the first time we screen tested them — I don’t think they’d met before, really — and he took a minute for him to get back up to speed with her because she was so funny. And then they really brought out really great parts of the other’s performance. Of course, it was there, and that’s why we cast that dynamic. It was really great to watch it on screen.”
(continue reading…)

Remember those tracking numbers that showed Disney had not done it’s job properly in advertising John Carter, resulting in a $200+ million loss for the studio? Well, the numbers are out for Disney’s first Marvel film for which it is doing the distribution, The Avengers – and it looks like it has nothing to worry about this time.

Deadline is reporting that tracking numbers are “incredibly strong” ahead of the May 4th U.S. release – with great numbers from both men and women, both young and old, and is looking at a possible $100+ million domestic opening weekend. Plus, it will open a week earlier in several international markets, which should increase the buzz.

Speaking of early international openings – Universal’s Battleship opened in 5 locations yesterday and received previews in 11 more, more than a month ahead of its May 18th U.S. debut – and it is reported that it is doing very well in those markets so far, estimating a take of $7.4 million for yesterday alone and taking the #1 spot in many cases.

Battleship, from Peter Berg, was another risky, expensive movie – numbers place it between $200-250 million – and after the failure of John Carter, some believe this had the potential to follow it as a massive bust. From the trailers, I get the impression of it being Battle: Los Angeles on water – buy I don’t know if it suffers from similar marketing to John Carter – action scenes without context or story. I can say, however, that I’m looking forward to The Avengers much more.

Even though many of Marvel’s characters live over at nearby Universal Studios’ Islands of Adventure, Disney will be showing off some of them at Walt Disney World. To celebrate the upcoming movie The Avengers, WDW will be “wrapping” (covering with a durable but removable skin) one of their Monorail trainsets with an advertisement for the movie, similar to how they created the “Tron-o-rail” for the release of Tron: Legacy.

Disney purchased Marvel back in 2009 for $4 billion, and then followed up by purchasing the distribution rights for several of the in-development movies, which were originally with Paramount. So Disney now basically owns all the Marvel properties. But Universal has a long-standing open-ended exclusive contract with Marvel that gives them exclusive rights to a number of Marvel characters for use in theme parks east of the Mississippi – which means that Disney cannot used them in the parks at Walt Disney World. The promotion of the movie, however, is a bit different – and in a sense it can only help promote the characters at the competing park.

It appears there are still some restrictions, though…word is this particular monorail will be restricted to the Magic Kingdom routes, and will not travel to Epcot – possibly because the beam track to Epcot actually runs within the park itself, which may violate the contract or agreement in place that restricts what can be done within the parks.

Check it out…the official trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 3D!

How do you handle the origin of a World War II era propaganda comic character, make him believable to contemporary audiences, and also set him up for him to appear in the present-day superhero team film coming up? You do what they did in Captain America: The First Avenger, which is out on Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, and DVD next Tuesday, October 25th.
(continue reading…)