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Breaking the all-time record for an opening weekend, "Spider-Man" blasted into theaters this weekend and exceeded anyone's wildest expectations, taking in an unbelievable $114 million, according to studio estimates. That blew away the existing three-day record, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" $90.6 million take from last November. it even topped "The Lost World: Jurassic Park"s $92.7 million holiday - weekend benchmark. These are numbers that nobody saw coming.
How did this happen? Simple, in retrospect. "Spider-Man" is a film franchise that appeals to audiences young and old, male and female. (Remember: The character has been around for much longer than young Mr. Potter.) The opening weekend audience was split evenly by age and gender. Yound fans rushed out to see the flick, starring Tobey McGuire and Kirsten Dunst, lest they be the only ones who didn't see the film in its first three days of release.
And older moviegoers were swayed by the tremendous advance publicity and, more significantly, by the film's strong reviews. Plus, as the first "summer movie" of the year, it had virtually no competition. All that means that "Spider-Man" far outgrossed all the other films in the marketplace and became the first movie to earn $100 million in three days.
