This statement has a lot of caveats, but we’ll ignore them for now because it’s a fun story: this weekend, a film adaptation of the great American novel earned more than $50 million on the same weekend a Tyler Perry-produced romantic comedy earned less than $5 million. So this is what pleasant surprise feels like. Huh. Neat.

1) Iron Man 3, BV $72,472,000 Total: $284,893,000
2) The Great Gatsby, WB $51,115,000
3) Pain and Gain, Paramount. $5,000,000 Total: $41,608,000
4) Tyler Perry Presents Peeples, LGF $4,850,000
5) 42, WB $4,650,000 -Total: $84,732,000
6) Oblivion, Universal $3,864,000 Total: $81,655,000
7) The Croods, Fox $3,600,000 Total: $173,215,000
8) The Big Wedding, Lionsgate, $2,500,000 Total: $18,288,000
9) Mud, Roadside Attractions, $2,343,000 Total: $8,363,000
10) Oz The Great and Powerful, BV $802,000 Total: $229,985,000 [Indiewire]

I’d like to think the general populace was just too smart for a movie that once was called “Meet the Peeples,” which sounds like a fake Tyler Perry movie name generated by computer, and that sat on the shelf for a few years before it was released and generally looked pretty horrible, but let’s be honest, none of those things have ever slowed Tyler Perry down before. More than likely, his cultish fan base just didn’t realize or recognize it as a “Tyler Perry movie,” since he didn’t really do much to it creatively beyond stick his name on it. Peeples reportedly cost around $15 million, and almost certainly won’t make that back. It’d be nice if this slowed Tyler Perry down at all, or forced him to try to make better movies, but shit rolls downhill, so most likely it’ll probably just hurt the talented people who agreed to be in it, like Craig Robinson and David Alan Grier and Kerry Washington. Hopefully it won’t hurt much, because Craig Robinson is awesome. He nodded “sup” to me once at the Hollywood Improv. Cool story, huh.

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This week on the Frotcast, four out the five Frotsmen have seen Iron Man 3, which we discuss in typical fashion late in the ‘cast. Wait, did I say FIVE Frotsmen? I did indeed, for Ashley Burns, the unauthorized mayor of Orlando, joins us on this week’s Frotcast to bring us the latest news from central Florida as well as his Song of the Summer, a little ditty called “Punch (Let’s Be Real)” about a real life tale of unrequited love (according to a guy named MoistCholo). It’s so bad, and I can’t stop siiiiihhhiiiiihiiiiiiinging it. I attached the video after the jump to share my affliction. Eat your heart out, BurnsyFan66.

BONUS FROTCAST NEWS: Laremy clearly has the magic touch, because for the SECOND YEAR IN A ROW, one of his picks for Fantasy Summer Box Office got bumped off the summer release schedule. Last year it was GI Joe Retaliation, this year it’s his Bomb Pick, the 300 sequel. The jinx is strong with that one.

Thanks to everyone who donated to the Kickstarter, I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’m so very afraid. Check out Frotcast.com to sponsor the ‘cast or for no-login-required commenting.

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Email us at frotcast@gmail.com. Voicemail us at 415.275.0030. Follow me on Twitter. Follow Ben on Twitter. Follow Bret on Twitter. Follow Laremy on Twitter. Follow Burnsy on Twitter. Fan us on Facebook.

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I don’t have much of an opinion on Iron Man 3, other than I liked it. I guess I fall right in the middle of the spectrum if one end is Vince’s praise of the wonderful Shane Black and the other is Nathan’s takedown of the “terrible” film. I could have done without that entire Adam Pally scene and I thought the end was a little quick and convenient, but do I feel that my $12 was well spent? Sure, why not.

The movie isn’t without its flaws, as very few movies of such scale are perfect, and one questionable moment came early on when Aldrich Killian visited Pepper Potts to try (once again) to get Stark Industries on board with the Extremis project. Pepper glossed over her relationship with Aldrich, claiming that he had harassed her many times about going on a date, but there was no elaboration.

Well, it turns out that the very first draft of Iron Man 3 featured quite a bit of elaboration. As Black explained on the Empire Film Podcast, Aldrich and Pepper… Got. It. On. And they recorded it because that’s what people do now.

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I try not to do a lot of prefacing before I get to the meat of my movie reviews, but for this one it seems necessary, so here goes: I saw a lot of Shane Black movies in the late eightes/early nineties. As an only child with no restrictions on what types of movies I was allowed to watch, the R-rated Lethal Weapon movies were to me what The Goonies and The Sandlot are to other kids (even as a 10-year-old, I had a knee-jerk disdain for anything I perceived as treating me like a child, I even hated the Ninja Turtles). I got in trouble at school more than once for parroting Mel Gibson’s creative methods of telling his captain go f*ck himself. Today I can still quote my favorite lines from even lesser Shane Black films, like The Last Boy Scout (“I think I f*cked a squirrel to death”) and The Long Kiss Goodnight (“Nah, I just sock ‘em in the jaw and yell ‘pop goes the weasel.’”). Hell, I even liked Last Action Hero. And this was years before I even knew Shane Black’s name, or that it was the same guy writing all those scripts. I always wondered if my affinity for Shane Black was just a right-time, right-place situation, with his scripts being popular and me being young and stupid at about the same time. But now that I’ve seen the Shane Black-directed and co-written Iron Man 3 well past the age when I should’ve acquired discerning taste and reason? Bros, I’m here to tell you that my youthful stupidity was downright prophetic.

Iron Man 3 blows the first two out of the water. The first had a certain beef-headed charm, and was notable for being the first to present Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, one of the all-time great casting choices. And of course, ROCKET HANDS. The second was an extended trailer for The Avengers, best forgotten, apart from Sam Rockwell smirking and Mickey Rourke’s parrot. Frankly, I wasn’t looking forward to a third. And then… All the weirdness surrounding Sir Ben Kingsley playing The Mandarin – an ethnically ambiguous sort-of Indian actor playing an ethnically ambiguous sort-of Chinese villain, who seemed to have been based on an earlier generation’s romanticized stereotypes about the Chinese and who in the movie speaks with consonant-heavy, Amerrrrican Innnnndian-esque a-rrrregional accent – all of it crystallizes in a character reveal that not only manages to make all of that make sense (!!!), but is easily the funniest scene in any superhero movie to date. And I’m counting the unintentional humor in Daredevil or the Fantastic Four movies. Was Iron Man 3 a silly movie? Oh my, heavens yes. But after that scene I would’ve followed it anywhere.

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Haha, quit playing around, you guys.

Laremy jumped off to a commanding lead in this year’s Fantasy Summer Box Office contest, as his first pick Iron Man 3 hand rocketed its way to a $175.3 million opening in North America, good for second all time behind The Avengers $207.4 million last summer. But we all saw this coming, let’s not start acting like Laremy is some kind of sage here. Iron Man 3 is to this summer’s box office what Barry Sanders was to Madden ’92, and any butt-fingering chimpanzee worth his own back ticks would’ve chosen it first. (Look, you do not want Laremy to get a big head, trust me on this).

Iron Man 3‘s $175.3 million debut is a huge leap over Iron Man 2‘s $128.1 million [and Iron Man's $98.6]. That’s a remarkable achievement given the dodgy history of three-quels—nearly all of them decline from their predecessor—and Iron Man 2′s questionable reputation. The main reason for this is simple: audiences viewed Iron Man 3 more as follow-up to The Avengers, which is almost universally beloved, than as a sequel to Iron Man 2. [BoxOfficeMojo]

I guess I can buy that the public saw it as a follow-up to The Avengers, since the average Joe Buttcrack and Charla Cheesesnack don’t think about stuff like Shane Black coming on to direct. Though for me, there’s a nice synergy to the idea that the best of the three Iron Man movies is also the highest opening. (*tattoos “SHANE BLACK 4 EVA” on chest with exacto knife*)

Weekend Top Ten and Fantasy standings below.

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