It's no secret that Grand Theft Auto IV's launch wouldn't be anything less than a runaway success, so the bigger question was whether or not it had what it takes to bring down this summer's comic book movie event, the newest motion picture adaptation of Marvel Comics' Iron Man.  Actually GTA IV got so big the question was really aimed at the Iron Man instead.  Even publisher Electronic Arts wondered out loud if Iron Man's box office performance stood to be diluted as a result of GTA IV's release earlier last week.

Headlined by Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow, Iron Man would in fact net $100.7 million USD during opening weekend in North America alone.  The global weekend box office take was estimated to be around $201 million USD.  According to license holder Marvel, that would make the film the tenth best opening weekend yet in Hollywood and the second best non-sequel debut since the first Spider-Man flick back in 2002.

How will ticket sales grow as the film weathers its first week at box office?  The weekend performance of Iron Man should be encouraging for Marvel in more ways than one; Marvel itself was forced to sit through a slower financial first quarter, with both sales and profits down from the same period last year.  Now the studio confirms at least four new movies based on its comic book licenses for 2010 and 2011, including a sequel to Iron Man.

GTA IV was no slouch as well, with analysts predicting first week sales potentially reaching a stellar 4 million units across both console platforms.  Publisher Take-Two meanwhile thinks this ought to be closer to 6 million units, at least $400 million USD in sales.  We're looking forward to some clearer results from both the publisher and possibly the NPD Group, that's for certain.