Today in 2002, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (2002) became the first movie break $100 million in sales just in its opening weekend. Spider-Man 2 (2004) would go on to break its record, and Spider-Man 3 (2007) then broke that record. One year later the record was broken by The Dark Knight (2008), which still holds the distinction of being the most successful comic book movie of all time. Image Credit: movieposter.com
Today in 2008 saw the release of Iron Man (2008). After the success of other comic-inspired films, like the Spider-Man (2002) and X-Men (2000) franchises, Marvel decided to throw their hat into the movie ring for the first time. Iron Man was a massive critical and commercial success and kicked off the multi-billion dollar Marvel Cinematic Universe. It also re-invigorated the career of star Robert Downey, Jr, whose past addiction problems had been very public over the years. Image credit: movieposter.com