Monday Morning Quarterback
By BOP Staff
May 6, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Brett Ballard-Beach: I feel like each of my assertions should be countered with an "and but so." The overseas numbers are great and there is no reason to think this will earn any less internationally than ASM1. On the domestic front: Compared to openings so far this year, it's in the spectacular wheelhouse. Compared to superhero movie openings in the last year, it's respectable. For a franchise that began 12 years ago by setting the opening weekend record, it's disappointing on the fast track to disconcerting. From $403 million to $373 million to $336 million to $263 million, the Spider-Man franchise is on a downward incline in North America, and this isn't going to reverse that trend. It has the worst Rotten Tomatoes aggregate rating of any film in the series thus far (believe it or not, it is the first rotten one) and if it pops much past $200 million I will be surprised. As we often say, the second weekend will be key but at this point, I am thinking the gap between this and Neighbors is going to be shockingly small and ASM2 may not finish on top.
Edwin Davies: I'm pretty mixed on these results for many of the same reasons that Brett listed. In terms of 2014 box office, it's the second highest opening of the year and any film that opens to more than $90 million is doing pretty damn well. And for the fifth film in a franchise to do this well suggests a great deal about the enduring appeal of Spider-Man as a character, both in America and overseas, where his popularity has not diminished, but grown considerably.
However, when compared to its predecessors, this suggests that the bloom is off the rose and that people are pretty ambivalent about the rebooted version of the character. The mid-week opening of the first Amazing Spider-Man makes it hard to do a direct comparison, but it shot under the first Raimi film by almost $20 million, bearing in mind that film was released 12 years ago with lower ticket prices and no extra 3D surcharge, and the third by almost $60 million. That's not an encouraging progression by any stretch of the imagination, and suggests that the Amazing Spider-Man series is very much the Hobbit to the Spider-Man's Lord of the Rings at this point: Any success it achieves is through familiarity rather than any real merit. Familiarity will carry you a long way, though, and with international grosses the studio will probably still make out okay, even if it seems destined to be the lowest grossing Spider-Man film to date.
Bruce Hall: Sony is going to keep churning out Spider-Man movies at regular intervals for the indefinite future because they have to if they're interested in keeping the rights to the franchise. So I'm not sure they're looking at this result strictly in comparison to the other franchise entries as much as they're hoping to make enough money to justify its overall existence.
I'd say they've done that, and then some. Domestic interest in the title may be waning, and 10 years ago that might have been cause for alarm. But worldwide results have remained quite strong; more than enough to guarantee that whether you're still interested in him or not, Spider-Man's not going anywhere for quite a while yet.
Felix Quinonez: I had to really think about this because, being a huge Spider Man fan, I really want to state a case that this is a really good opening weekend. First off, I want to look at this performance on in its own merits.
The movie made $91.6 million on its domestic opening weekend. When you ignore the knee jerk reaction to compare it to the other Spidey movies, you realize that's A LOT of money. If it holds as well The Winter Soldier, and I believe it will, Spidey should effectively match its budget on just domestic grosses. And when you take its overseas gross into consideration, I think it's safe to say that Spidey is doing just fine! (AWESOME.)
Since its foreign release, ASM 2 has made over $277 million overseas and is just shy of $400 million worldwide in less than a month. While it seems that Spidey's cinematic popularity might be waning domestically, I think he's just as hot overseas and we all know that the overseas market is just as important, if not more important these days. I have no reason to believe that ASM 2 won't be able to match the previous movie's overseas box office performance. In fact, I will say that it makes even more. So, even before it leaves theaters, Spidey will have made boat loads of money. And of course I haven't touched any of the ancillary sources of revenue the movie will have. (That's another topic of discussion, I believe.)
As for comparing it to the previous entry in the Marc Webb series, as far as the opening weekend goes, I think we can all agree that it's not an apples-to-apples comparison because of the different release pattern. Judging by the reviews, and seemingly lukewarm audience reaction, some people are expecting that this movie will wind up grossing less than the last movie. Well, that's not certain yet and it could still hold well enough to see a domestic gross bump. Its next direct comic book competition, X-Men, is still weeks away. By the time that movie comes out, Spidey will be in its fourth weekend.
The last Spidey movie faced direct competition in its third weekend from The Dark Knight Rises. And while people are excited to see the new X-Men movie, it's not nearly as anticipated as TDKR was. So I think Spidey could still outgross the last movie domestically and if it doesn't it will still retain a large percentage of its audience and that's also a success for sequels. AND when you throw in the overseas grosses I believe ASM will ultimately be bigger than its predecessor.
And as far as the Raimi trilogy comparisons, I think those are just flat out unfair. While I loved the first two Raimi movies like everyone else, I also think that trilogy had a sense a novelty that, along with the quality, elevated its box office performance. Raimi's movie was the first time we got to see Spider Man majestically swinging through the New York City skyline. Even if you didn't love the movie, it was hard not to love seeing the how well the special effects caught something that only a decade earlier would have been impossible. And that helped that series become a global box office phenomenon. But novelty is not something that can be recreated. And while comic book fans are used to seeing the origins being retold, to the casual movie audience it might seem off-putting that the series was rebooted so quickly. So maybe this series will attract a smaller audience. But it doesn't have to break records to make lots of money and be successful. So basically, Spider Man RULES!
David Mumpower: The comments thus far run the gamut of what Internet opinion appears to be on the subject. The subject is truly divisive, and a lot of people feel the same way as Felix about comparing the title to the previous version of Spider-Man. Personally, I think that such comparisons as unavoidable. The instant Sony determined not to make Spider-Man 4 and reboot a decade old franchise, they introduced that line of thinking. People compare Batmans (Batmen?) and Supermans (Supermen?) so they are going to do the same with Peter Parker.
The problem faced with The Amazing Spider-Man was that consumers were annoyed that such a young story was being told once again. Even worse, that movie basically took the origin story from the first film and combined it with the demented mentor from the second film, the best of the series. It was derivative in every manner possible, and it was also not well liked. The fourth Spidey film was tolerated more than anything else.
Given the fact that another sequel was rushed into theaters in order to capitalize on the popularity of comic book releases right now, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was financially necessary for Sony yet superfluous to customers. For that reason, I believe that this opening weekend borders on a best case scenario result. It effectively matched Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a project that was an Avengers spin-off as well as a sequel to a much better received movie. It also had the Disney marketing arm behind it, and that inflates children's ticket sales a great deal. If I am a Sony executive looking at these numbers, I am alarmed by the unmistakable downward turn of the domestic box office but I am also relieved that disaster was averted. In my estimation, there was a much larger chance that this movie bombed rather than opened to $90 million. Sony's Spider-Man franchise has lived to fight another day, which was the realistic best case scenario.
Kim Hollis: I think this is an expected result. Anything much less would have been disappointing; more would have been surprising. Ever since Spider-Man 3, North American audiences have been steadily losing interest in this character, and I think it’s because there’s some limitation in the stories that can be told (though you can say that about most superhero tales to some degree). Unfortunately for Sony, he’s a lesser Marvel character at the moment. If he could have been pulled into the Avengers’ fold, we’d be looking at an entirely different story here. As it is, this is an okay performance but with word-of-mouth both from critics and audiences being poor, it’s going to struggle from here domestically. International revenues will be Sony’s saving grace and a reason to justify continuing the series so they can hold on to the character rights.