'Spider-Man 2' ropes in US$92 million opening

Spider-Man can still sling it at the box office. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 debuted with US$92 million in North American cinemas over the weekend, according to studio estimates yesterday.

It was a solid opening for Sony's Columbia Pictures, which has released five movies about Marvel's web-slinging superhero in the last 14 years.

The release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 essentially kicks off Hollywood's summer season and its annual parade of sequels and spectacle. Marvel movies have regularly commenced summer moviegoing in recent years, and the Spider-Man 2 opening begins the season with a business-as-usual blockbuster performance.

Last week's No. 1 film, the female revenge comedy The Other Woman, starring Cameron Diaz, slid to a distant second with $14 million in its second weekend.

The rebooted 'Spider-Man' franchise starring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, isn't performing quite as strongly as Sam Raimi's trilogy with Tobey Maguire. On opening weekends, the Raimi films grossed, in order: US$114.1 million, US$88.2 million and US$151.1 million.

HUGE BUSINESS

The The Amazing Spider-Man, also directed by Marc Webb, opened on a Tuesday in 2012, making US$62 million on its debut weekend and US$137 million over its first six days.

The new sequel, which began rolling out overseas two weeks ago, is also doing huge international business. It has already grossed US$161 million abroad, and it added another US$116 million over the weekend.

That included US$10.4 million from China, where it opened Sunday on a record 11,002 screens. And it set a record for Hollywood titles in India with a US$6.5 million debut.

"Everywhere we opened just popped," said Rory Bruer, head of domestic distribution for Sony.

Domestically, families made up 33 per cent of the audience of the PG-13 The Amazing Spider-Man 2, a high percentage for a superhero film.

"It did seem to have a very strong component to the film, which we felt was an opportu-nity," Bruer said. "It also lends itself to a picture that will be around the market for a while, too."

But as Hollywood's summer rolls on, the competition gets stiffer. In two weeks, Warner Bros opens the highly anticipated monster movie Godzilla.

Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for box-office tracker Rentrak, said that shouldn't pose problems for the Marvel juggernaut.

"In the summer, two weeks is a lot of time between blockbusters," Dergarabedian said. "You don't see this kind of consistency in a particular genre that often."

Spider-Man follows Marvel's Captain America: The Winter Soldier, released by Disney, by just a month. (The 'Captain America' sequel is still in the top five, with US$7.8 million in its fifth week.)

The marketplace made way for Spider-Man over the weekend with no other new wide releases. Sony's Heaven Is for Real continued to appeal to faith-based audiences, hauling in US$8.7 million in its third week.

Here are estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at US, and Canadian theatres, according to Rentrak:

1. The Amazing Spider-Man 2, US$92 million (US$116 million international)

2. The Other Woman, US$14 million (US$19.5 million international)

3. Heaven Is for Real, US$8.7 million

4. Captain America: The Winter Soldier, US$7.8 million (US$10 million international)

5. Rio 2, US$7.6 million (US$24.5 million international)

6. Brick Mansions, US$3.5 million (US$3 million international)

7. Divergent, US$2.2 million (US$9.8 million international)

8. The Quiet Ones, US$2 million

9. God's Not Dead, US$1.8 million

10. The Grand Budapest Hotel, $1.7 million ($8.6 million international).