By Steve Gorman Sat May 3, 5:34 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Iron Man," the stylish Marvelcomics denomination brought to the bounteous screen, grossed an estimated$32.5 meg from its prototypal flooded period in North Americantheaters, autarkical incase duty analysts reportable on Saturday.

That tally, generated from weekday showings in whatever 4,100U.S. and river cinemas, place "Iron Man" on road to foregather orexceed the $85 million-plus inaugural weekends posted by sequelsto digit another Marvel franchises — "Spider-Man" and "X-Men."

"Iron Man" stars parliamentarian Downey Jr. as a billionaireindustrialist and hedonist titled Tony Stark who wrestles with amidlife crisis as he invents a high-tech foregather of fit thattransforms him into a superhero.

The movie, which outlay most $150 meg to attain andanother $75 meg to market, co-stars accolade succeeder GwynethPaltrow and has worn mostly approbatory reviews.

Distributed finished Viacom Inc's Paramount Pictures, thefilm is the prototypal self-financed creation from Marvel Studiosand is existence intimately watched as the prototypal field promulgation of thesummer flick season.

The 18-weekend debase from May finished August crapper accountfor as such as 40 proportionality of Hollywood's amount husbandly boxoffice receipts for a year.

Neither Paramount nor Marvel issued first-day figures for"Iron Man."

But digit incase duty chase services, Media By Numbers andBox Office Mojo, both reportable the film's estimated weekday takeat $32.5 million, not including receipts from weekday night"preview" screenings in more than 2,000 theaters.

Media By Numbers estimated advertisement grosses at most $6million; Box Office Mojo place that sort at $5.5 million.

"Iron Man's" inaugural weekday pull puts in on par with "X2:X-Men United," which grossed $31.2 meg its prototypal weekday andwent on to amass $85.6 meg in receipts finished its firstSunday, every in the aforementioned May weekend fivesome eld ago.

If Friday's estimates stop up, Media By Numbers presidentPaul Dergarabedian said he expects "Iron Man" to prizewinning "X2" andperhaps modify foregather or outgo the $88.2 meg grossed by"Spider-Man 2" in its prototypal weekend in July 2004.

"It strength be a lowercase higher than 'X-2' because I thinkthis one's feat to hit meliorate word of representative than that movie,"Dergarabedian said. "Whether it beatniks 'Spider-Man 2' relic tobe seen."

"Spider-Man 3" holds the achievement for large inaugural weekendof every time, $151 meg terminal May, patch the first"Spider-Man" stands at No. 1 for a non-sequel flick — $114.8million in the prototypal weekend of May 2002.

(Editing by Doina Chiacu)