Why We Can't Wait to See It: Forget all the action, color and excitement. I'm just dying to see Robert Downey Jr. as a superhero! Oh, and it's got a half-decent cast too.

Why It Might Do Well: The Spidey series has spun out, the X-Men are ex-movie stars, and I think it's safe to assume that the Fantastic Four have been shown the door. We need a new superhero series! Based only on the (inescapably) early advertising, Iron Man looks to cover all the bases: Wit, weirdness, warmth and (of course) "wow!"

Why It Might Not Do Well: Well, it IS opening against a romantic comedy with the guy from Loverboy and Can't Buy Me Love...

Fun Fact: This is the first superhero movie to be bankrolled by Marvel itself. (Paramount is just the lucky distributor for Iron Man.) This means that several of the "Marvel-retained" comic book characters will soon be "cross-populating" each others' movies! Neato!

Trivia