Hollywood loves a crisis. In particular, it loves an economic one. This isn't because sub-prime mortgage meltdowns make for good screenplays - they don't - but because cinema attendance booms typically during a recession.

The trend will be tested today with the opening of Iron Man , the latest Marvel Comics adaptation, starring Robert Downey Jr in the superhero role of the title. Analysts say that the film could take as much as $80 million (£40 million) over the weekend as Americans mob the cinemas in search of a distraction from all the talk of $120-a-barrel oil, unstoppable inflation, and the falling property market.

Even if American audiences avoid Iron Man, the economic crisis means that Hollywood will almost certainly get its money back from international sales. Thanks to the weak dollar, an £11.50 film ticket sold in London is worth $22.68 to a film studio in Los Angeles, compared with $18.40 five years ago.

Iron Man is the first in a series of “event films” to be released between May and September, in an attempt by Hollywood to break last summer's season box-office record of $4.18 billion. Other big hits are expected to include the eagerly awaited Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and a dozen or so new franchises, including Hancock (starring Will Smith), the animated King Fu Panda, and the thriller Wanted.

“In the past four decades there have been seven recession years in this country, and box office climbed strongly in five of those years,” said John Fithian, the president of the National Association of Theatre Owners.

“Consumers cut back on expensive purchases during recessions but also typically shift what discretionary spending money they have left to affordable activities, such as going to the movies.” This economic anomaly was first observed during the Great Depression, when even the Dust Bowl refugees used what little money they had to pay for admissions to monster movies and Marx Brothers comedies.

Now, with America supposedly on the brink of Great Depression II (like most sequels, its arrival has been hyped in advance), studio executives are closing their eyes and seeing dollar signs.

The data seems to support the optimism. During the last recession of 2001, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone became a $1 billion smash, while box office revenues for the year rose 9 per cent to $8.4 billion. A decade earlier, in 1991, when the US economy was reeling from defence spending cuts caused by the end of the Cold War, Hollywood released Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which took more than half a billion dollars.

But not everyone is convinced that Hollywood is in for such a good ride. They point to film attendances down by about 6 per cent this year and that Americans now have many other ways to distract themselves.

Explore Film

• Film Reviews

• DVD

• Oscars

• Bollywood

Editor's choice

• Gordon Brown’s secret to stayin’ alive
• What’s up with Woody?
• Can Cannes get serious?