Todd’s Movie Blog

So the big forecast this week from the media and interactive research analyst Edward Woo is that the release of Grand Theft Auto IV will cause Iron Man to tank at the box office because all of the people who would go to see Iron Man will be at home playing GTA IV instead.  I feel kind of insulted by this.  Once again there is a cliched stereotype branded onto comic book fans by the mainstream media, that they are all fourteen year old geeks who won’t be able to tear themselves away from their game consuls to check out a superhero movie.  Never mind the fact that Iron Man has been published for over forty years so that the fan base for the character stretches from teenagers to people contemplating retirement, never mind that it stars a legitimate  actor with a solid fan base among older theater goers,  and especially never mind that not everyone that reads comic books plays video games…like me.  I like movies and I like comic books, but I’m not really into gaming, my wife, The Patient One, likes gaming but really isn’t into comic books, yet we both are looking forward to seeing Iron Man, and neither of us are considered a target demographic, due to our being older than the considered appropriate age group.  But that’s not the real kicker from the doom sayers. One of the facts they are using to make this prediction is that Halo 3 came out the same week Ben Stiller’s The Heartbreak Kid debuted and it tanked at the box office, never mind that the movie sucked, or that not everyone is a Ben Stiller fan, it must have been that darn video game.  Please!  Give me a break!  How about people that play GTA games will probably go see Iron Man as well.  Want proof?  I have a friend who is a GTA fanatic and he is planning on going to see Iron Man several times, oh and he is in his late thirties.  Why don’t you crunch them numbers Mr. Woo.