Lawless
All About Brad!
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Registered: Jun 2003
Local time: 11:07 PM
Location: Freezing in Colorado
Posts: 27143
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Usually sequels are bigger. Rarely are they are accused of being better.
And then there's Spider-Man 2, opening on more than 4,000 screens Wednesday.
One film reviewer was so ecstatic upon viewing the comic-book flick he praised everything right down to the end credits. One financial analyst was so bullish on the film's buzz he forecast a $1 billion worldwide gross.
Not bad for a superhero suffering an identity crisis in his latest adventure.
"The timing couldn't be better for Spider-Man 2," says Paul Dergarabedian of the box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations. "I'm not going to put any limits on it."
From California to New York, the movie will bow in some theaters as early as midnight Wednesday.
Spider-Man 2's predecessor, the simply named Spider-Man, is the as-yet untoppled king of opening weekends, pulling in $114.8 million over a Friday-Sunday in 2002. Shrek 2, another arguably bigger, better sequel, recently stole Spider-Man's single-day record, grossing a whopping $44.8 million on a Saturday in May.
Dergarabedian says Spider-Man 2's box-office potential is almost incalculable because of where its opening is falling--on a Wednesday, with a holiday (the Fourth of July) on a Sunday, and another holiday on a Monday (the make-up day most everyone gets off for the Fourth of July occurring on a weekend). All told, the all-new Spidey will have six prime summer days with which to do damage.
And maybe some good deeds, too.
"The boost it's going to give the summer movie box office is immeasurable," Dergarabedian says. "It's going to boost everything. It's going to bring renewed interest to the box office."
Already, Shrek 2--$398 million in the domestic bank and counting--has done its part.
Before the CGI comedy opened, summer box-office revenue was running 22 percent behind last year's, per Exhibitor Relations. Through last weekend, with Shrek 2 continuing its fairy-tale run, it was up 4 percent.
With Shrek 2 closing in on $400 million, Dergarabedian says he can't predict if Spider-Man 2 will end up the top movie of the summer, or if it'll end up topping its own predecessor, currently the fifth-largest grossing movie of all time, at nearly $404 million.
Still, says Dergarabedian, "It's definitely possible."
A recent report from a Spidey 2-smitten financial analyst with Thomas Weisel Partners, the San Francisco-based merchant bank, predicted an $850 million worldwide box-office gross and left open the possibility of $1 billion, per Reuters.
The original Spider-Man grossed $822 million worldwide.
According to film critics, at least, the new film is worthy of the hype.
Spider-Man 2, wherein Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) comes to terms with his web-slinging self, struggles to keep a flame going with cute-girl-next-door Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst (news)), does battle with ever-handy foe Dr. Octopus (Alfred Molina), and utters words tapped out by the guy (Alvin Sargent) who wrote Ordinary People, has generated across-the-board positive reviews.
The gushing sampled:
"Spider-Man 2 is 1) a sequel that's much better than the original movie, and 2) probably the best special-effects extravaganza since Raiders of the Lost Ark."--Richard Schickel, Time
"[Spider-Man's] big action moments...will pop your eyes, fry your nerves and keep you laughing."--Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
"Its distinguishing features, I'm happy to report, are strong characters and honest feelings."--A.O. Scott, New York Times
For a non-dissenting opinion, there is Daily Variety's Todd McCarthy, who loved everything--everything: "At six minutes, even the end credits are shorter than the norm for this kind of crew-heavy picture."
Still, comic-book fans, burned by big-screen adaptations of everything from Captain America to Tank Girl, are nothing if not a wary bunch.
Mike Dean, news editor of the magazine, The Comics Journal, says he's sure he'll see Spider-Man 2. Eventually.
"I'm kind of jaded as far as superhero movies," Dean says. "I'm not real excited about seeing them."
Yeah, but those end credits...
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:::>^..^<::: ~*~The Journey is more important than the end or the start~*~ :::>^..^<::: |
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06-30-2004 08:28 PM
