Sony/Columbia Pictures’ Spider-Man 3 raked in $151 million domestically over the weekend to bring its opening week worldwide gross to a whopping $382 million. Seen on a record 10,000 screens, the pic enjoyed the biggest opening in cinema history, easily topping its two predecessors and breaking the $135 million record set last summer by Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.
Debuting to mixed reviews, the third outing for Marvel Comics’ web slinger proved critic-proof and gave the theater business the shot in the arm it needed after a few lackluster weekends. In addition to big action and epic storytelling, fans were lured in by blockbuster visual effects and CG animation by Sony Pictures Imageworks and a web of other vendors including Furious FX, Digital Domain, New Deal Studios, Evil Eye Pictures, Caf’ FX, Digital Dreams, Giant Killer Robots, Tweak Films and Pixel Liberation Front.
With Spidey breaking every record and taking 80% of all box office receipts, there few scraps to be divided among the flicks playing in the other auditoriums. After holding the top spot for the last three weeks, DreamWorks/Paramount’s Disturbia dropped to No. 2 with an estimated $5.7 million. Made for around $20 mllion, the thriller has earned approximately $60 million so far. The film’s success bodes well for star Shia LaBeouf’s next release, DreamWorks’ big-budget, live-action/CG treatment of the classic Transformers cartoon series.
Despite minimal marketing, New Line Cinema’s courtroom drama Fracture jumped up a notch to the No. 3 spot as more mature audiences sought to avoid the crowds squeezing into Spider-Man 3 screenings. The Anthony Hopkins vehicle grossed approximately $3.4 million over the weekend, just squeaking past Buena Vista’s The Invisible, which slipped from No. 2 to No. 4 with an estimated $3.1 million in its second week out of the gate.
Rounding out the top five for the weekend was Paramount’s Next, a title which pretty much sums up the reception the film received from moviegoers. Even the star power of Nicholas Cage and visual effects by Comen VFX, Pixel Magic, Digital Dream VFX, Tweak Films, Digiscope, LOOK! Effects and Cinema Production Services Inc., the movie has only managed to take in around $11.8 million since debuting at No. 3 last week. It did, however, fare better than newcomer Lucky You. Starring Eric Bana and Drew Barrymore, the Warner Bros. poker pic was pronounced dead on arrival, landing in the No. 6 spot with a mere $2.5 million (est.)
