By Scott Bowles, USA TODAYTake that, Jack Sparrow.
CHART: Top 10 weekend films
Spider-Man 3 set a half-dozen box-office records this weekend, including biggest debut with $148 million, according to studio estimates from Nielsen EDI. The opening handily reclaimed several benchmarks set last year by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, including biggest opening day and most single-day ticket sales.
It also provided a tantalizing salvo in the battle this summer between the major sequels of May: Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third, which opens May 18, and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which premieres May 25.
The question now facing the web-slinger: How high can he fly?
On several levels, Spider-Man 3's numbers were impressive. The film sold 22.4 million tickets in North America, a modern-day record.
It also claimed a worldwide ticket sales mark by raking in $375 million and setting weekend debut records in 26 countries, including Japan, Russia and Mexico.
Because the film will enjoy one week without serious competition before Shrek and then Pirates open, Spider-Man becomes the front-runner for biggest film of the year. Most analysts had considered Pirates the prohibitive favorite.
"We still have a lot of big movies to go, but this is going to be really hard to top," says Paul Dergarabedian of industry tracking firm Media By Numbers. "This will easily be one of the top 10 movies of all time, and maybe in the top five."
Titanic is the highest-grossing movie ever with $600 million domestically, followed by Star Wars with $460 million, Shrek 2 at $441 million, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial with $435 million and Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace with $431 million.
Among Spider-Man 3's records, if estimates hold up:
•Friday's take of $59.3 million is the most ever, surpassing the $55.8 million opening day by Dead Man's Chest.
•Saturday's haul of $51 million eclipses Shrek 2's $44.8 million in 2004.
•Spider-Man 3 joins Dead Man's Chest as only the second film to cross the $100 million mark in two days.
This weekend's losers: Every other movie. Disturbia was second with $5.7 million, followed by Fracture with $3.4 million. The Invisible was No. 4 with $3.1 million, and Next took in $2.8 million. Final figures are due today.
Even though Spider-Man director Sam Raimi and stars Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst have not committed to more installments, the movie's debut cemented the decision of Sony executives to continue the series.
"We just wanted to beat the first Spider-Man," which opened with $114 million in 2002, says Sony co-chairman Amy Pascal. "This is beyond our dreams. I'm going to keep making Spider-Man movies until someone stops me."
1 comment:
I like that, it gets my imagination going. You’re watching Cops, they’ve got the battering ram ready, the guy pounds the door and there’s Sony co-chairman Amy Pascal, bent over a pile of coke and an editing table, desperately trying to finish the scene in which Spidey must fight Aunt May, enlarged to 30 feet high and shooting beams out of her eyes.
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