'Iron Man 2' Underperforms At Midnight Screenings, Record-Wise

Tired, perhaps annoyed of all those silly blog posts asking, "OMG, just HOW much money will "Iron Man 2"make? Or perhaps the even more ludicrous ones asking, "can 'IM2' make more money than, 'The Dark Knight'"??

It's not that we don't want it to do well, but those posts -- all about the math, the money and the numbers -- do tend to be rather obnoxious. Especially because there's the given assumption that "Iron Man 2" is going to blow everyone out of the water despite the rather tepid reviews (here's our collective likes, issues and problems with the film).

Well, if Thursday night's midnight screenings are any indication, the hyperbole number crunchers should keep it in check. While Jon Favreau's Marvel sequel did take in a decent $7.5 million on approximately 2,500 screens, those numbers were well under the $26.3 million "New Moon" midnight haul the "Twilight" film took over Thanksgiving last year. Those numbers were also well under the $18.5 million "The Dark Knight" raked in on its midnight debut in the summer of 2008.

Sure, "Iron Man 2," will still do gangbusters this weekend (it's already taken in over $139 million overseas and update: man, it just took in $52 million Friday night in North America) and likely overall, but we feel like this is some sort of karmic payback to those that just thought this one was in the record book bag, no matter what. Maybe we should just hate the player and not the game. [THR/Movieline]