IRON MAN MOVIE: Who will dethrone the Iron King?

So who are the contenders?

It has been almost a month now since the theatrical release of the Iron Man movie (it was released in the US on May 2nd - it seems so long ago now, huh?). Honestly, it was an awesome movie-going experience for me and many more thousands of comic book fanboys worldwide. Now it is time to look ahead and wonder: 'what will be the likely Super Hero movie successor to Iron Man this summer at the box office?'

Well, looking down the list, there are a few likely candidates; Just let me prefice this by saying that , in my book, Indiana Jones does NOT qualify as a super hero flick, okay?

So, who's up to bat first? A big batter: the Incredible Hulk movie. This one is a Marvel movie, but it just doesn't seem to be getting the kind of natural buzz that Iron Man benefited from. It probably doesn't help that there was recently a dispute between Hulk star Ed Norton and Universal Studios over the final cut of the upcoming movie (June 13th). A ramification of this was Norton reportedly refusing to do any PR work for the movie. That could explain some of the lack of 'pop' for this film so far. It might do well but it won't recapture the Iron Man buzz.

June 27th sees the release of the Angelina Jolie , Wanted movie. This is based on a great comic mini-series from Mark Millar, so it is acomic based effort but not really a super hero flick - it's actually quite an anti-hero kind of film. Either way, this one is not getting anywhere enough buzz at this point for me to give it much of a 'shot' (sorry) at being the next hero flick with legs.

On July 4th we have something interesting: Will Smith's pseudo super hero Hancock movie. It might be about a character with no existing history, but when you put Will Smith and Summer blockbuster together it usually equals a strong box office, so this one could be acontender.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army is sceduled for release the following week but it has less chance of being a nother huge Summer hit - it should do ewell enough just not on the scale of Iron Man.

Okay, here is the one that I will be waiting for and watching the early boxoffice performance of most carefully: Batman: The Dark Knight. It overcame adversity (set fires) and tragedy (the death of Heath Ledger) and still was completed as intended. this one has been slowly building up buzz after the release of the latest trailer (shown before Iron Man ironically) and shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.

So there you have it: the successor to Iron Man's title of reigning Summer box office super hero may just be the longtime competition: DC Comics and their iconic Dark Knight, the Batman.

When I go to see this one, I might just go with a smile.