by Andy Gibbons

Oh dear, Russell Crowe isn’t going to be happy. The news from the US is that Iron Man 2 has held on at the top of the box office chart over there despite Robin Hood blasting into cinemas over the weekend.

The comic book sequel took $53 million between Friday (May 14th) – Sunday (May 16th) while Russell’s medieval adventure could only muster $37.1 million in comparison. Don’t get me wrong, that’s not exactly small change but this was Robin’s debut weekend while Iron Man 2 opened across the pond the previous week so the Hood should really have been aiming for a box office bull’s-eye.

It’ll be interesting to see how the rival movies have fared over here when the UK box office chart is revealed tomorrow.

UPDATE – 17/05/2010:

Ok, maybe it was just an American thing ‘cos Robin Hood has SMASHED Iron Man 2 at the UK box office, taking £5.75 million over the weekend compared to IM2’s £1.59 million. But there are some mitigating circumstances to be taken into consideration – this was Robin Hood’s first weekend in cinemas while it was the Marvel hero’s third (Iron Man 2 is now on a UK total £17.9 million so it’ll be interesting to see if Robin Hood is anywhere near the same after three weeks on release) and £1.38 million of Hood’s swag came via ‘previews’ on May 12 & May 13th so it’s actual weekend figure is nearer £4.37 million. But that shouldn’t take away from what is a very impressive debut for Robin and his merry band of accents men.