Update!

Amazing Spider-Man Reboots Bigger Than Batman; Where Did John Travolta's and Katy Perry's New Movies Rank?

Andrew Garfield era of Webslinger franchise comes up with estimated $140 million in first six days; Travolta's Savages opens OK, Perry's concert flick bows on low end of concert-flick scale

By Joal Ryan Jul 08, 2012 6:00 PMTags
The Amazing SpidermanColumbia Pictures

The Christian Bale era of Batman is closing strong, but the Andrew Garfield era of Spider-Man has opened bigger.

The Amazing Spider-Man added a $65 million Friday-Sunday haul to its mid-week launch for an estimated six-day total of $140 million, miles bigger than the starts of rebooted superhero franchises starring the Hulk, Superman and the Caped Crusader.

Elsewhere, John Travolta's Savages scored a respectable debut, while the Katy Perry concert film, Part of Me, did OK, too, even as it made the Jonas Brothers look retroactively huge.

The Amazing Spider-Man goes down as the fourth-biggest film to launch on or near the Fourth of July, per BoxOfficeMojo.com data. With 3-D accounting for 44 percent of its weekend business, the movie bested the holiday totals of Eclipse, Hancock and Superman Returns, the 2006 attempt to get the Man of Steel back in action.

In its first six days in release, Superman Returns grossed $119.8 million. The six-day takes of other reboots: 2005's Batman Begins got started with $79.5 million; 2008's The Incredible Hulk came up with $70.7 million.

Even when those totals are adjusted for inflation, only Superman Returns stands above The Amazing Spider-Man—its gross comes up to about $145 million.

Superman Returns as well as Batman Begins are good lessons in reboots: It's not necessarily how you start, it's how you finish. Superman Returns faded fast,with its hero requiring yet another reboot; Batman Begins hung around, as did Bale. 

Maybe the most encouraging opening-weekend stat for The Amazing Spider-Man is that people didn't just buy tickets, they liked the movie, grading it an A-minus in exit polling.

Overseas,  the film, which opened in some parts of the world last weekend, came away with another $129.1 million, and upped the $220 million production's worldwide total to $341.2 million. 

(And for those wondering, no, The Amazing Spider-Man's opening frame did not match any posted by any film from the franchise's Tobey Maguire era.) 

Elsewhere, Savages grossed $16.2 million off a summer-cheap $45 million budget.

The performance was a step up for Travolta from his last film, From Paris With Love. It also represented John Carter and Battleship star Taylor Kitsch's best budget-to-opening weekend ratio of the year. Paying customers, however, were cool to Savages, assigning the Oliver Stone drug drama only a C-plus.

Perry's Part of Me, which opened last Thursday, scored a $7.2 million weekend, and pushed its domestic take to $10.3 million. The numbers are pretty good considering the film reputedly only cost $12 million, but they're also a pretty pedestrian return considering the recent history of concert movies.

Miley Cyrus' Hannah Montana vehicle, which, with the help of 3-D ticket prices, kicked the genre up a notch in 2008, bowed with $31 million. Big concert films by Justin Bieber ($29.5 million) and Michael Jackson ($23.2 million) followed. The Jonas Brothers, meanwhile, took heat in 2009 for not selling tickets like Cyrus, even as they bowed with $12.5 million.

Even on the low end of the scale, Part of Me is an upgrade over last summer's 3-D concert entry from Glee, which opened with $6 million.

Other highlights from the box-office weekend:

Last weekend's champ, Ted, held very well, even as Spider-Man bounced it to No. 2. After two weekends, the comedy is at $120.2 million domestically.  

Magic Mike got stripped, with ticket sales dropping 60 percent from last weekend, but retained an attractive bottom line: The Channing Tatum film has taken in $72.8 million domestically off a $7 million budget.  

The Avengers, which staved off eviction from the Top 10 last weekend, looks like it'll really, truly get the boot this time out. The epic blockbuster did pick up another $2.2 million, and raised its domestic total to $611.1 million.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Prometheus and Snow White and the Huntsman also fell from the standings. Of those, Snow White hung around the longest (five weeks), and made the biggest impression, grossing $150 million domestically so far. All told, the $170 million film is at $339 million worldwide, per BoxOfficeMojo.com.

Woody Allen's To Rome With Love went wide,and cracked the Top 10.

Here's a complete look at the weekend's top movies, per Friday-Sunday domestic estimates as reported by the studios and Exhibitor Relations:

  1. The Amazing Spider-Man, $65 million
  2. Ted, $32.6 million
  3. Brave, $20.2 million
  4. Savages, $16.2 million
  5. Magic Mike, $15.6 million
  6. Madea's Witness Protection, $10.2 million
  7. Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, $7.7 million
  8. Katy Perry: Part of Me, $7.2 million
  9. Moonrise Kingdom, $4.6 million
  10. To Rome With Love, $3.5 million

(Originally posted at 9:04 a.m. PT on July 8, 2012.)