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"Spider-Man" Spins Video Record
We don't know if Sony's spider sense is tingling, but we're pretty sure everything else over at the studio is after Spider-Man did whatever a spider can--and then some--over the weekend.
Already the biggest box-office hit of the year, Sam Raimi's blockbuster snared more records--and more cash--with an amazing debut on home video, selling an estimated 11 million combined DVD and VHS copies in its first three days on sale.
To put things in perspective, the video's $190 million outgrossed the film's $114.8 million three-day opening weekend in theaters last May. Even more staggering: The video release outperformed the combined top 10 movies at this weekend's box office by nearly $90 million.
Starring Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, the film has so far raked in an incredible $800 million worldwide for distributor Sony Pictures theatrically. But that total could more than double in the coming weeks on the strength of video sales. (Not a bad return on the studio's $120 million investment.)
"With more than a billion dollars in worldwide revenues to date on this single title, the success of Spider-Man is simply staggering," says John Calley, chair of Sony Pictures Entertainment, adding that the studio will have its best year ever thanks to Spidey.
Fans smitten (bitten?) by their friendly neighborhood Spider-Man snapped up 7 million combined copies of the VHS and DVD on Friday alone, with an estimated 5.6 million copies of the DVDs accounting for 80 percent of those sales, according to Sony.
That means the superhero saga surpassed the first-day sales record set by Disney and Pixar's Monsters, Inc., which sold a combined 4.5 million DVD and VHS units upon its debut in September.
And with 11 million copies sold in its first three days, Spider-Man also breaks the 9 million videos sold by DreamWorks' Shrek last November.
"This is the biggest and fastest-selling title, not only theatrically, but now in the home-video market," Sony exec Benjamin Feingold boasts to the Hollywood Reporter. "This is clearly the biggest film of the weekend, and we believe that within weeks we will be approaching The Lion King in terms of total sales."
(For those keeping track at home, The Lion King is the all-time leader with with 32 million VHS copies sold to consumers in the pre-DVD era of 1995.)
Sony execs figured the movie version of the Marvel Comics signature hero would be huge, shipping a record 26 million tapes and discs to retailers last week.
Unlike most videos, which are released on Tuesdays, Spider-Man was treated like a theatrical relase and went into stores on Friday.
"From a marketing standpoint, we wanted to have Spider-Man out there on Halloween night, utilizing midnight madness-type promotions at many retail outlets and providing four extra days of marketing to make it the biggest weekend event of the quarter and therefore, the year," Feingold tells the Reporter.
The minimum retail price for the double-disc DVD set, available in both wide- and full-screen formats, was $19.95, though some big-box retailers like Wal-Mart were initially selling it for as low as $15.95. A limited-edition collector's DVD, with extra goodies like a replica of the first Spidey comic book, was priced at $39.95.
Sony, natch, is already prepping for a sequel. The Amazing Spider-Man, with Raimi back at the helm and Maguire re-donning the red-and-blue tights, is slated to swing into theaters in May 2004.
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