Saw Spiderman and while not a good movie, it is not a bad movie but to the purist in me to comics, it was more bad than good! I will put my comment in the Spideman thread.
Weekend Report: 'Spider-Man' Swings High But Falls Short of Predecessors
by Ray Subers --- July 8, 2012
The Amazing Spider-Man got off to a very good start over the past six days, though it didn't perform at the same level as the previous series entries. Meanwhile, Ted continued to play well, Savages got off to a decent start, and Katy Perry: Part of Me disappointed. The Top 12 earned an estimated $187.1 million this weekend, which is up 28 percent from the same frame last year.
The Spider-Man reboot earned an estimated $65 million for the three-day weekend. Adding in its previous three days of grosses, the new version of the webslinger's story had a $140 million six-day opening. Over the identical six-day period in 2007, Transformers earned $155.4 million.
That six-day opening is significantly higher than Batman Begins ($79.5 million) or X-Men: First Class ($69.9 million) among comic book reboots. The best way to judge the movie's success, though, is not to compare to different franchises, but instead to compare within the Spider-Man franchise. It did wind up close to the first Spider-Man's $144.2 million six-day start, though it was way off from Spider-Man 2 ($180.1 million) and Spider-Man 3 ($176.2 million). Batman Begins, on the other hand, had the highest six-day start in Batman franchise history at the time.
First Class provides a more accurate comparison; it was also a reboot that opened five years after a trilogy conclusion that made tons of money but was creatively disappointing. X-Men: First Class's $55.1 million debut was about in line with the first X-Men's $54.5 million, and at the time it was deemed mildly successful; therefore, The Amazing Spider-Man deserves about the same status at this point.
According to distributor Sony Pictures, the movie's audience was 58 percent male and 54 percent were 25 years of age and older. They awarded Spider-Man an "A-" CinemaScore, which suggests good word-of-mouth that could propel the movie to close to $300 million (assuming it doesn't get completely crushed by The Dark Knight Rises in two weeks).
Even though on the surface it appeared to have one of the more interesting uses of 3D in recent years, only 44 percent of The Amazing Spider-Man's grosses came from those higher-priced tickets. IMAX was comparatively much more impressive: the format accounted for $14.3 million, or roughly 10 percent, of the six-day grosses (all of that is included within the 3D share).
In second place, Ted fell 40 percent to an estimated $32.6 million. That gross is about even with The Hangover's second weekend, albeit with a steeper decline. However, the movie's $120.2 million 10-day total is ahead of The Hangover through the same point, and it's hard to imagine a scenario where Ted doesn't close above $200 million.
Brave dipped 41 percent to $20.2 million in its third weekend. Even if it plummets against Ice Age: Continental Drift next weekend, its $174.5 million gross-to-date means its all-but-assured to be Pixar's 10th $200 million movie.
Brave also helped Disney become the first studio to pass $1 billion at the domestic box office on Saturday. The studio reached the milestone on the 187th day of the year, which is a new record for them. It also ranks sixth all-time behind Paramount (2008, 2010, 2009, and 2011) and 20th Century Fox (2010).
Savages debuted in fourth place with an estimated $16.2 million from 2,628 locations. Considering the competitive market and the movie's brutal R-rated violence, this isn't a bad start at all. It's the third-highest debut in director Oliver Stone's career behind Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps ($19 million) and World Trade Center ($18.7 million), but his best for an R-rated movie.
At the same time, Savages came in below a handful of similar crime movies. It's off from Contraband ($24.3 million) and The Town ($23.8 million), though it was a bit higher than Smokin' Aces ($14.6 million).
It's hard to say for certain how the movie performs from here: it received an awful "C+" CinemaScore, and anecdotally is getting some terrible word-of-mouth, but there are only four nationwide releases in the next three weeks so it may have some room to breathe anyway. Even with all the violence, gunplay, and drug trafficking, the movie's audience still skewed slightly female (51 percent) and a little older (61 percent were 30 years of age or older).
Magic Mike fell 60 percent to $15.6 million in its second weekend; considering it was positioned as an "event" movie last week, that huge drop doesn't come as much of a surprise. The Channing Tatum male stripper movie has now earned $72.8 million, and it will be interesting to see whether it can inch its way past $100 million before the end of its run.
Tyler Perry's Madea's Witness Protection also dropped 60 percent this weekend, adding $10.2 million for a new total of $45.8 million. It's on pace to become one of Perry's higher-grossing movies.
A second weekend for Tyler Perry finished ahead of the first weekend for Katy Perry: the pop singer's concert/documentary hybrid earned just $7.15 million for a four-day total of $10.25 million. That's a fraction of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never's $29.5 million three-day start, and it's also less than half of Michael Jackson's This Is It's $23.2 million. That was expected to an extent, though, considering Perry isn't as popular as either of those two figures. However, the movie's four-day opening was less than the three-day start for Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience ($12.5 million) even though Jonas debuted in half as many locations. That's considered a notorious flop within the concert movie sub-genre, and therefore Part of Me is going to need to hang on very well in the coming weeks to not receive a similar distinction.
The audience was 81 percent female and 72 percent were 25 years of age and older, according to distributor Paramount Pictures. The movie did earn a very good "A" CinemaScore, at least, which should help it a bit.
Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted reached $196 million on Sunday, and it's now the highest-grossing entry in the Madagascar franchise. Meanwhile, Moonrise Kingdom has now earned $26.9 million, which makes it writer-director Wes Anderson's second-highest-grossing movie ever behind The Royal Tenenbaums ($52.4 million).
Woody Allen's To Rome with Love expanded nationwide in to 806 locations and earned $3.5 million. The movie's total reached $5.6 million, and by next weekend it will become Sony Pictures Classics' top movie since Allen's last outing Midnight in Paris.
