Sony REALLY Hopes You Liked The Amazing Spider-Man
Last summer, The Amazing Spider-Man, directed by Marc Webb and starring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, was released by Sony Pictures, and, if I’m not mistaken, it wasn’t exactly considered the best comic book movie of all time.
Matter of fact, I seem to recall it getting completely lost in the shuffle between The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises. And now, a year later, I don’t think I could tell you a single major thing that happened in it. I just remember disliking it a great deal and hoping to never have to watch it again.
A quick browse through our archives shows that, indeed, I hated it, though Jim Doom thought it was pretty great.
Let’s look at some facts first, before I get to my point.
Hit the jump, and let’s get down to business.
1. Of the four Spider-Man movies released since they started coming out in 2002, it’s the lowest grossing one at the box office.
Taking dollars out of it, since inflation and 3D has basically made that stat worthless, it sold less than half as many tickets as the first Spider-Man and a full 15 million tickets less than Spider-Man 3 (that’s a lot, considering ASM only sold roughly 30 million tickets, total).
Of the Marvel brand of movies, it barely cracks the top ten in terms of total tickets sold. Another telling statistic that plays in here: Of the top ten Marvel movies, only The Avengers and Iron Man 2 appeared in more theaters upon release than The Amazing Spider-Man.
That’s fine. It’s a reboot. Franchises can’t be rebooted in a day, especially considering this one was still covered in sand(man).
2. Of the Spider-Man movies, its score on Rotten Tomatoes is only marginally higher than part three’s. The other two blow it away. Amazing was certifiably fresh, but it’s not nearly as well reviewed as the first couple Spidey flicks. Compared to other famous franchise reboots, it’s less Batman Begins or Casino Royale and more Superman Returns and The Incredible Hulk.
Well, that doesn’t exactly bode well.
3. Of the major comic book movies released last summer, as well as the previous three installments in the Spider-Man line, it’s the only movie that held first place at the box office for just one weekend.
Any superhero movie, especially one starring one of the bigger named characters, can pop a huge opening weekend, but if you don’t have staying power, it just makes it so you’re inevitably pretty forgettable. The Amazing Spider-Man was ousted from the top spot in its second weekend by the 50th installment in the Ice Age franchise.
Way to dominate, Spidey.
I think that’s sufficient evidence to make my point. Hindsight has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that The Amazing Spider-Man was a pretty forgettable reboot. Commercially, it was a solid success, but not on par with other movies of its genre. Critically, it was also a middling success. Again, nothing worthy of the “amazing” moniker, but solid, nonetheless.
It should come as no surprise that Amazing Spider-Man 2 is set to be released on April 17 of next year.
It SHOULD come as a surprise, though, that Amazing Spider-Man 3 is going to be released on June 10, 2016, and Amazing Spider-Man 4 will come out on May 4, 2018.
What the hell is Sony thinking? Why would they green-light the next two installments in the franchise nearly a year before the second one is even out? Is there some contractual thing that would make it so that Marvel Studios could buy the rights to the character back from their studio if Sony doesn’t release a Spider-Man movie every couple of years, thus paving the way for Spider-Man crossovers in The Avengers and other Marvel properties?
Oh.
Oh, there is?
Well, crap.
I definitely liked ASM more than you did, and I came away from the movie honestly enjoying it. However, I’ve watched the original Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 several times over the past decade, and I’ve had no interest in watching this one again. So it definitely suffers in the staying-power category.
I’m kind of glad they’re planning a lot of these movies, though. My understanding was that one of the strategies of the reboot was to keep Peter in high school longer, and I wonder if this schedule doesn’t commit them to that restraint.
I liked ASM a lot too. I like even more that ASM2 is being released on May 2 next year in the States, which is my burfday. Spider-Man will always be profitable, and the first big blockbuster of the summer, which is released the first weekend in May, is always profitable. Sony announced the release of 3 & 4 so that no one else could claim that first weekend release. They never release two blockbusters that week. It was a smart decision by Sony that will pay off big time.