The Amazing Spider-Man 2, starring Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, and Jamie Foxx,has earned $35.5 million on its first Friday, a figure that includes $8.7m in Thursday sneak previews. The (relatively) bad news is that both the Thursday number and the Friday number are behind Captain America: The Winter Soldier ($10.2m/$36.9m). The good news for the Sony Corporation's $250m sequel is that the film is already less front-loaded than the Steve Rogers adventure, as it did just 24% of its Friday number on Thursday, versus 27% for the Captain. If the film plays like a conventionally kid-friendly blockbuster, it should do about $90m for the weekend. There isn't a ton of wiggle room here in terms of how this weekend plays, as we're certainly looking at an over/under 2.5x multiplier for the weekend. So anything under $80m or over $95m will be worthy of discussion. Sony is projecting $92m-$97m for the Marc Webb sequel, which sounds realistically optimistic. Obviously $100m would be a great headline, but a 2.85x multiplier isn't terribly likely on this specific weekend, unless it's something that's truly catching huge buzz like Iron Man or The Avengers.
$90 million would be a 45% jump from the $62 million Friday-Sunday opening of The Amazing Spider-Man, but said film opened on a Tuesday and earned $137m over its six day July 4th weekend debut in 2012. More importantly, the $35m opening day is identical to the $35.5m opening day of The Amazing Spider-Man. On one hand, sequels are supposed to have bigger opening days based on the excitement and goodwill carried over from the last installment. An identical opening day means there was no growth in terms of fan base or the newbies were leveled out by the ones who will wait to see the sequel or won't bother at all in theaters. The positive 'spin' is that the last film opened on a Tuesday in the middle of summer, while this one opened on a Friday in the middle of the school year. Either way, this feels like a Star Trek Into Darkness or Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows situation where a sequel doesn't quite go nuts but ends up a little over the first film thanks to increased worldwide interest.
This is barely a larger opening day than X2, which kicked off summer 2003 with $31m and would be about $41m in today's dollars. It's obviously a bit lower than the $38m debut Friday of Iron Man in 2008 and right in line with the $34.4m debut Friday for X-Men Origins: Wolverine in 2009. Obviously this is larger than the $25m debut of Thor and What's most noteworthy is how far off (adjusted for inflation or otherwise) the opening day is from Spider-Man ($39m in 2002) and Spider-Man 3 ($51m). I'm not going to spend too much time this morning nitpicking a $35m opening day, but it does point out how this new Spider-Man reboot has taken Peter Parker from being among the biggest franchises around to just being another superhero franchise.
On the plus side, even with little advance buzz and the entertainment media talking about everything else but Amazing Spider-Man 2 all week ( Justice League on Monday, Star Wars on Tuesday, etc.), the film is still going to pull in $90m by tomorrow. The core audience for these films aren't the so-called 'fanboys' or even the film nerds, but the countless general audience moviegoers who saw just one or two of the thirty trailers, saw Emma Stone on the talk shows, and thought it looked like a good time a the movies this weekend. The general audiences, the ones who brought their kids and/or go to the movies ten times a year, won't care about the shoe-horned universe building and may-well be surprised by the finale. They'll just come for what works (the action, which looked dynamite in IMAX, and periodic romantic banter) and not be too bothered by the rest. That's not a criticism, just an observation.
Of course, the film had already earned $155m overseas going into the weekend, so the worldwide total may well be around $300m by tomorrow. Sony didn't release numbers, but they are stating that the film broke opening day records in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the biggest opening day for a US film in India and Vietnam. It scored the second biggest opening day ever in Singapore and the third-biggest opening day in Brazil. We'll get more hard numbers, as well as the China debut figures, tomorrow morning.
There isn't much else news to report. Belle, Fox Searchlight's Jane Austin adaptation starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, earned an estimated $29,000 from four screens. Walt Disney's Captain America: The Winter Soldier will surpass the $235m gross of X-Men: The Last Stand this weekend after earning $2.01m today for a $231m cume. 20th Century Fox's Rio 2 topped $100m yesterday by earning $1.73m. The Other Woman earned about $4.8m on its second Friday (-49%) and has now grossed $37.95m. Warner Bros.' Transcendence crossed $20 million in its third Friday, earning $0.335 million for a 74% drop. Sony's Heaven Is For Real earned $2.4m yesterday for a $59m cume. God's Not Dead will close out the weekend at $55m while The Grand Budapest Hotel will cross $50m this weekend.
That's it for today. There will be plenty more Spidey box office news to discuss tomorrow once the weekend estimates swing in. If you've seen the Spidey sequel, please share your (non spoiler, please) thoughts below.
Post By http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2014/05/03/friday-box-office-amazing-spider-man-2-grosses-solid-35-5m/
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