Gatsby77

So Ant-Man took the # 1 spot this weekend anyway, despite hitting its projected 57% drop (same as Thor 2). Turns out that it people really don't like (& didn't see) Pixels, which is projected to finish about ~$760k behind Ant-Man for the weekend. Puts Ant-Man at $24.765 million for the weekend to Pixels' $24 million. Still, an interesting weekend as 3 films each finished between $21-$25 million, but we didn't have a breakout blockbuster, the type that sucks the oxygen out of the room with a $60 million, or $100 million opening leaving just table scraps for the rest of the films out there.

I'm in the NM 98-as-first-appearance camp. Why? Because I was reading New Mutants from # 92 on and loved the character who first appeared in # 98. Ironically, X-Force # 8 was the last issue I read of that title. Because I never read X-Force past # 8, I didn't catch the retcon. Similarly, having read some of the GA stories, no way do I believe that Alan Scott is gay.

any reason you're excluding Big Hero 6 from the above? Seems far more canonical than say...Steel, given that it's a Marvel Studios production, had input from Joe Quesada & Jeph Leob, and featured a Stan Lee cameo.

there's no possibility it only does $300MM WW; unless you meant $150MM US + $300MM int'l which seems like where's it's headed. Depends -- International take so far is below the U.S. domestic (at $56.5 million), so that's entirely contingent on which international territories it's opened in, & I don't know. Forbes' Scott Medelsohn is now predicting it will track a la Thor 1 (which I had called 4 months ago) and finish with $156 million domestic / $390 million total (ww). I think the total international haul may be significantly less than $390. http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2015/07/19/box-office-ant-man-opens-with-tiny-58m-weekend/ Interestingly, it's actually done worse than Hulk -- when adjusted for inflation & 3-D prices, Hulk actually did the equivalent of $70 million its opening weekend in today's dollars. I'm not trying to be a naysayer; rather, my concern is how it effects the slate of potential unannounced films for other lesser-known Marvel heroes. If Ant-Man significantly under-performs expectations, Disney will have to a) reduce the budget for new films featuring more minor characters or b) delay and/or cancel them altogether.

So now it's all in how well it holds up. I think Ant-Man could hold fairly well next week (vs. Pixels), but it will likely drop like a stone against Mission Impossible 5, Vacation, and (the following week) Fantastic Four. Will the possibility of $150 million / 300 million worldwide hurt plans for Black Panther or the other lesser Marvel movies? Or potentially endanger new big-screen outings for the Hulk, Punisher or Daredevil?

I stated four months ago that I thought it would do Thor I numbers ($180 domestic / $450 ww). I stand by that because outside of hardcore comics fan Thor was just as unknown & frankly -- hard to do a good movie of. Even $160/$400 would be a success for Ant Man. Incredible Hulk numbers are fine considering how better known and more popular Hulk is, both among comics fans (b-list to Ant-Man's c-list) and the general public (Hulk had a successful TV show, solo cartoon & the Ang Lee movie); Ant Man had nothing.

Movie speculation happened well before The Walking Dead TV show, just not at the instant speculative velocity of today's levels. Examples: Batman (1989) -- nearly every single Joker book spiked The Crow -- it was a niche cult hit before the movie, but once word of the film got around it really took off Blade -- Tomb of Dracula 10 suddenly became a legit Bronze key Spider-Man -- ASM 14 was always expensive -- it spiked big-time in the lead-up to the film. Ditto with every major Spidey movie villain since (ASM 6 more than doubled in the 36 hours after The Lizard was announced for Spidey 4). Watchmen -- mad common books that suddenly caught on after the first movie trailer To me, the reason Men in Black seems like such an outlier isn't that the books pre-dated the Walking Dead TV show, but that the movie was original enough it didn't "seem" like a comic book film. It also wasn't a typical superhero film. Others in this category that had limited (niche) comic fan appeal include: From Hell History of Violence (technically a graphic novel) Road to Perdition (ditto) 300 Mystery Men On the bubble: The Mask. Those books went from $1 to $10-$15 per, but in today's environment, some of those appearances would have instantly gone to $50-$75.

That's a good chart but the implicit logical flaw is discounting that every other book on that list was published in 1975 or before, at the very infancy of the direct market. You can't really compare high-grade populations of 1970-1975 books to 1976-1980 books any more than you can compare the vastly lower quantities of 1960-1964 books relative to their 1965-1970 counterparts. Yes -- there are _huge_ numbers of Star Wars # 1 out there. But there are also huge numbers of its peers -- Peter Parker # 1 (347 9.8s), Nova # 1 (134 9.8s) and She Hulk # 1 (755 9.8s). Likewise, it's specious to claim that these latter books weren't "slab worthy...since the advent of CGC" because these 1976-1980 books have only become truly valuable within the last 15 years. A 1977 book was 23 years old at the advent of CGC; vs. 38 years old today.

What was questionable about Shazam and Howard the Duck? Just curious... I don't know about Howard the Duck # 1 but I recall from an early 90s article that two guys bought several trucks worth of Shazam # 1 that amounted to 40% of the print run. Consequently, the book never even made it to the stands in several parts of the country -- including the West Coast. As of the late 1980s/ early '90s, it was believed that their hoard remained intact.

The advise here for trickling them out gradually over several venues is solid. Also, I wouldn't worry about any negative repercussions of your 100 copies hitting the census all at once. Every comic collector knows that this book (along with Peter Parker # 1) is as common as dirt and plentiful in high grade. It still sells for increasingly absurd amounts and will continue to rise as the next six movies will simply increase the fan base for Star Wars memorabilia. You're safe because ultimately Star Wars fans far outnumber comic book collectors.

I. Great chart!! Really interesting way of looking at the market. II. Does Star Wars # 1 (regular) qualify for inclusion yet? I have a sneaking suspicion that the combination of its incredibly high print run and relatively high price this year would make it chart-worthy -- maybe even at the ASM 300 level. But this is also a quick & dirty check on my understanding: It's 3,479 copies x 9.00 average grade x $191 GPA per CGC 9.0. If I understand your reasoning, that puts it at just shy of $665k, so it doesn't hit the minimal $1 million threshold, right?

For those keeping track: Harbinger # 1's booked +3 more 9.8s in the last six weeks.

The difference between Rai 0 and EW 4 is that we all knew about Rai 0, & it was pre-ordered & speculated on from day 1. Even with that, it popped to $8 within a month and was always seen as key. So you'll find very few Valiant collections without at least 1-2 copies of Rai 0. In contrast, nobody knew EW 4 would be "important" and it didn't get hot until a few months after publication, when Wizard started pumping it. So, not at all surprising that 20+ years later there are far fewer copies of EW 4 slabbed, let alone in grade.

Don't get me wrong -- Birds of Prey was _not_ a good show. Her character was great, though -- although it was sort of a pre-Batman Begins storyline where she was was therapist / mob boss Harley Quinzel up until the last episode, when she finally donned a (mask-less) Harley Quinn costume. Joker was nowhere to be found in the series, save a brief flashback cameo in the first episode. And I'd wager that Harley as a character has also evolved a bit through the comics over the past 14 years.

I loved me some Mia Sara Harley back in the day (i.e., Birds of Prey). So deliciously evil. The show would probably do far better today in this post-Heroes, Agents of Shield, Arrow, and The Flash world.

Reynolds was not the failure in Green Lantern. It was the -script -- Hal Jordan is cocky and confident, not a comedian -- the -script had Reynolds play Jordan a la Van Wilder or Guy Gardner. And then there was the of turning Galactus into a cloud and the ridiculous special effects on Hector Hammond. 100% -script issues. By comparison, I've loved what I've seen of Reynolds as Deadpool (both in Wolverine: Origins -- "Okay...People are dead!"-- and the test footage & viral marketing campaign for the solo movie so far). And to be fair -- what the writers did to Deadpool at the end of Wolverine was far worse, to me, than what they did to Mandarin in Iron Man 3.

I'm still going with Thor I / Captain America 1 numbers for Ant Man. Guardians of the Galaxy this ain't. Captain America didn't even hit $400 mill. worldwide. Granted, the international box office has vastly expanded since then, as has the coordination (studios used to roll out internationally weeks after the domestic release. Now they're released abroad concurrently or even prior to the U.S.) And by this rubric -- (i.e., Thor 1 numbers of $180 domestic / $450 international) Ant Man will be considered a failure.

I think Ant Man will tank. Like, $180 million domestic & maybe $450 worldwide. That may not sound like "tanking" but for a heavily-promoted tentpole Marvel movie, it's really weak. It'd be one thing if it cost only $90 million to make, but my guess is it's more like $160 -- far too much for a C-list character. So...still profitable, but it's inability to blow the doors off and live up to expectations will cause it to have a dampening effect on future comic book movies.

I don't know that I've ever been as let down by a comic as I was by Infinity War # 1. After the majesty that Infinity Gauntlet, it was just...ugh. Then again, a) I wasn't young enough to live contemporaneously through Secret Wars vs. Secret Wars 2; and b) Seriously -- even Dark Knight Strikes Again had its charms

Looks a lot like Lois & Clark! I'm on board.

Yeah -- I'm not sure about it just because it's a trade. I'd bet on issue 1 instead. Past comp? God Loves, Man Kills didn't exactly skyrocket in the lead-up to X-2 or X-3.

Umm...there will be an X-Force movie sooner than you think.

I don't think too many people speculating on this book paid anything over cover for it. Yet.

Beta Ray Bill stuck around for awhile, and was far more ridiculous than a female Thor. I know only this: My ex-girlfriend avidly collects just two series: (Lady) Thor Rat Queens

And now we have a succession plan for the movies...could this be the "unannounced" sequel Disney Marvel had on the books?