The Amazing Spider-Man 3

Mon., May. 14, 2007 1:59 PM PDT by Joal Ryan

This was not a job for Larry the Cable Guy.

No, the business of defeating Spider-Man 3 at the box office is a superhuman task best left to the likes of Shrek the Third. But until next weekend, when that CGI sequel opens, there was this weekend.

Spider-Man 3 dominated with $58.2 million, per Sony tallies, bringing its two-weekend total to $240.2 million.

Worldwide, the Tobey Maguire-Kirsten Dunst adventure has amassed $619.8 million, according to studio stats.

The movie has made so much money, so fast, that Sony—the studio that reportedly spent as much as $500 million to make and market the big-ticket item—already looks to be in the black. And special-edition DVD sales are yet to come.

Among the weekend's top 12 movies, Spider-Man 3 accounted for more than 60 percent of all business, which was actually nothing compared to last weekend, when it sucked up nearly 84 percent of all ticket sales, per box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.

While the web slinger's competition wasn't as weak this time out, it wasn't exactly strong, either.

The well-reviewed zombie flick 28 Weeks Later was something of a disappointment in the second-place spot. It made slightly less in 2,303 theaters ($9.8 million) than its predecessor, 28 Days Later, made at 1,260 theaters ($10.1 million) almost four years ago.

The Jane Fonda-Lindsay Lohan summit, Georgia Rule, bowed in third place, tops among movies about non-undead people who are utterly useless when it comes to saving Manhattan from Sandman. But its $6.8 million take was soft for a drama-comedy that, per the Internet Movie Database, cost $60 million to produce. Lohan has now gone four movies without enjoying an opening weekend of at least $10 million.

At least Lohan had her Herbie: Fully Loaded. Larry the Cable Guy started with Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector, which bowed with $6.9 million in 2006, and moved on down to Delta Farce (fifth place, $3.4 million), a new comedy about the lighter side of erroneously invading a sovereign nation.

The Ex was the weekend's other major new release, although there was nothing major about the $1.4 million the Zach Braff-Jason Bateman comedy scrounged up at 1,009 theaters. The movie finished out of the top 10 money, as did the Eric Bana-Drew Barrymore bomb, Lucky You, which managed just $1.2 million ($4.8 million total).

Will Ferrell and Jon Heder's Blades of Glory also fell out of the top 10, but it didn't disappear—it just got tuckered out. In its seventh weekend, the skating comedy scraped up $1.5 million, bringing its overall haul to $113.9 million.

In limited release, the all-star valentine, Paris, je t'aime, outdid Spider-Man 3 with a $20,247 per-screen average, amounting to $40,494. The late Adrienne Shelly's Waitress continued to cook with $656,988 at 65 theaters, Fox Searchlight said.

Here's a rundown of the top 10 films based on official Friday-Sunday studio figures compiled by Exhibitor Relations:

1. Spider-Man 3, $58.2 million
2. 28 Weeks Later, $9.8 million
3. Georgia Rule, $6.8 million
4. Disturbia, $4.7 million
5. Delta Farce, $3.4 million
6. Fracture, $3 million
7. The Invisible, $2.3 million
8. Meet the Robinsons, $1.8 million
9. Next, $1.74 million
10. Hot Fuzz, $1.72 million