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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!

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