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May 3, 2007 - Spiderman 3 tops box office worldwide |
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Just in time to save box offices from the clutches of evil,
low-grossing flops...here comes Spider-Man!
Spider-Man 3, the third installment in the
billion-dollar-plus franchise, took in a whopping $29.2
million in 16 foreign markets Tuesday, breaking records for
opening-day hauls in France, Italy, South Korea and Hong
Kong. |
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Spider-Man 3 had a $6.8 million showing in France,
for one, topping the first-day grosses for
Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 combined. Italian
audiences also said a resounding buon giorno to
Spidey, forking over a record $4 million Tuesday to
see Tobey Maguire swing into action one more time. |
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"This is a nice surprise, which bodes well for what promises
to be Italy's biggest summer ever," Sony Pictures Italia
exec Paulo Simoes told Variety.
Germany welcomed the latest chapter of the superhero saga
with $4.6 million, while people in Japan ($3.7 million),
South Korea ($3.4 million), the Philippines ($1.1 million)
and Hong Kong and Thailand ($1 million each) didn't need
much persuading to open their pocketbooks, either.
This promising one-day haul has Sony execs slavering over
what could be the biggest domestic opening weekend for a
film ever, a high-water mark set a year ago when Pirates of
the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest made off with $135.6
million.
Some are even surmising that Spider-Man 3 could also best
the second Pirates film's record one-day take of $55.8
million.
"I think that the chances are actually very good,"
box-office analyst Chad Hartigan of Exhibitor Relations told
E! Online. "First of all, it's opening at a time when the
box office is an absolute wasteland and the room for it
to...just dominate is enormous." And Sony just said that
"it'll be released on 4,200 screens, the widest release
we've ever seen—a testament [both to the film and] the weak
marketplace."
But while topping Disturbia (three weeks at number one, last
weekend with a paltry $9 mil) will be a cakewalk, besting
the other Spidey flicks seems to be the number one objective
for now.
"Everywhere we've opened so far has been the biggest
Spider-Man ever. That's our goal," Sony Pictures vice
chairman Jeff Blake told Reuters.
The star-studded sequel is certainly packed to the gills
with audience bait. Spider-Man faces off against not one but
four villains—Thomas Haden Church's Sandman, Topher Grace's
Venom, James Franco's revenge-minded New Goblin and Spidey's
own black-suited doppelgänger—and seeks to take his
star-crossed romance with Kirsten Dunst's M.J. to the next
gold-ringed level, while simultaneously saving the world
from intergalactic toxic sludge.
Meanwhile, Spider-Man 3 is a 99.9 percent favorite to anchor
the top spot at the U.S. box office at least until Pirates
of the Caribbean: At World's End sails into theaters May 25.
Fandango.com reported that advance ticket sales for the film
are six times what the pre-opening day haul was for
Spider-Man 2 in 2004—and two and a half times that of last
year's Dead Man's Chest. (Fandango and E! Networks are both
owned by Comcast.)
Come Friday, the Sam Raimi-directed Spider-Man 3 and its
$258 million production budget will open in 4,253 theaters
in North America, up from 4,166 theaters for Spider-Man 2,
which grossed $373.6 million domestically and $783 million
worldwide, per Box Office Mojo. |
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