Meet Toad, one of the mutant antiheroes of X-Men, which opens here next Friday having already taken more than $150 million on its US release. Hollywood's attempts to transfer super-heroes to the big screen in recent years have met with mixed results at best.
But the new version of the Stan Lee comic strip from The Usual Suspects director Brian Singer, has already done the business at the American box office, recording the sixth-biggest opening weekend of all time. Fuelled by pre-release internet mania - and helped by a rather drab menu of summer blockbusters this year - X-Men looks set fair to take over from the now-defunct Batman as the pre- eminent fantasy franchise.
Certainly, the movie's main stars - Patrick Stewart (Xavier), Ian McKellen (Magneto), Halle Berry (Storm) and Anna Paquin (Rogue) have already signed on the dotted line for the inevitable next instalment. But just how much bigger than that tongue get, we wonder.
