Will Hulk Smash Iron Man?

With Hulk just about to hit the theatres the question becomes, will Hulk Smash Iron Man in the Box Office? The early reports are that HULK is a fantastic film according to Variety.com and a variety of other early reviewers who have had a chance to hit a sneak peak of the film, inviting the question.. will it beat Iron Man's insane box office numbers? My feeling is that HULK with the help of great casting and writing ( Zak Penn and Edward Norton ) has the ability to bring in the same kind of box office numbers as Iron Man but it wont be an easy battle.

Iron Man to date according to BoxOfficeMojo.com has brought in $537,747,640 million dollars domestically and in foreign markets. That is a staggering amount of money and  it makes it one of the top grossing films in awhile. Once we add to that DVD sales it is an easy bet to say that Iron Man will gross close to a Billion dollars for MARVEL and the studio.

HULK has one big dis-advantage over Iron Man though. It has not as of yet tapped into the viral community and the fan sites quite as effectively as Iron Man did. The early buzz for Iron Man was intense, and everytime you turned around there was a new tidbit coming out about the movie driving us fan boys into an absolute frenzy. HULK on the other hand has been more subtle relying on the mystique of the character and the promise of a complete rework to drive Buzz.

I believe that HULK will have a powerhouse opening and its overall box office numbers will not be dictated by critic reviews but rather by fans and blog reaction to the movie. Todays generation of fan boys will dictate the movies sucess the same way that Iron Man did through strong word of mouth on the opening weekend. So will HULK smash Iron Man? My opinion.. it just might. Iron Man has the advantage of being the first to the punch but HULK can ride on the success of Iron Man and get all the energized comic book fans back into theatres for more great Comic Book Movie action... resulting in what could be another set of record box office numbers for a Marvel property.