Weekend Box Office (May 2 - 4, 2014)

by Gitesh Pandya

THIS WEEKEND Sony hopes to launch a more prosperous summer than last year with its big-budget tentpole The Amazing Spider-Man 2 which bows ultrawide with shows starting at 7:00pm Thursday night in 2D, 3D, and IMAX formats. This marks the second consecutive month when a major Marvel sequel opens on the first weekend following Captain America: The Winter Soldier which got April off with a loud bang with its $95M premiere. The new Peter Parker story hopes to reach the same vicinity this weekend.

During the void between the first Batman films and the Chris Nolan reboot, Spider-Man swooped in to become the top comic book film property. The first and third installments of the Sam Raimi series both shattered the all-time opening weekend box office record and part 2, which opened during an extended Independence Day holiday week in 2004, grossed almost as much as its predecessor overall. But the 2012 Spidey reboot became the lowest-grossing in the series domestically despite higher prices and 3D surcharges and did not captivate pop culture in the same way. Many fans were not anxious for a reboot so soon. And creatively it only satisfied moviegoers moderately. Hence, excitement going into this weekend's sequel is not at past levels for the webslinger.

Comparisons between the opening weekend grosses for the new film and the last Amazing would be unfair. The 2012 pic launched on a Tuesday ahead of the Fourth of July holiday weekend with $62M over the Friday-to-Sunday period and $137M across six days which would end up accounting for 52% of the $262M final. The real success came from growing overseas markets which drove the global gross to $754M. Spider-Man 2 is launching over a standard non-holiday three-day period, although the first weekend of May does sort of play like a holiday in that it kicks off the summer movie season and has been home to several record-smashers.

Spidey has more mainstream consumer appeal than Captain America, however Winter Soldier had the bonus of good will from the recent movies from the Avengers universe making it more of a must-see film for many fans. However, the webslinger has enormous appeal to much younger children. Many of their parents who skipped out on the gun-heavy Soldier, will buy up tickets this time - especially on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

Reviews have been mixed so some more casual action fans who just got their super hero need filled with Steve Rogers may take a pass on this one. Opening in 4,324 locations across North America, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 may take in about $92M over the weekend.

Cameron Diaz rocked the industry last weekend with her number one hit The Other Woman. The Fox title will try to play as counter-programming to young adult women against Spidey although Emma Stone will try to tap into that demo on behalf of her super hero sequel. A 45% drop may result putting Woman at about $13M and the cume at a solid $46M.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier will face a direct threat from Spider-Man so a larger 55% decline may occur. That would give Disney around $7M for the fifth round boosting the total up to $236M.

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Watch the trailer for X-Men: Days of Future Past. For a review of Captain America: The Winter Soldier visit The Chief Report.


LAST YEAR Hot shot avenger Iron Man 3 exploded at the box office to kick off the summer season with a towering $174.1M launch resulting in the second largest opening weekend in history trailing only The Avengers from a year earlier. The Disney release went on to gross a colossal $409M domestically which was second best for 2013 after The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Worldwide, Iron Man 3 amassed a phenomenal $1.2 billion. A handful of former number ones picked up some crumbs and rounded out the top five. Pain & Gain dropped to second with $7.5M while 42 collected $6.1M. Oblivion and The Croods followed with $5.6M and $4.2M, respectively.

LAST WEEKEND's TOP 20

Last Updated: May 1, 2014 at 4:10PM ET

Watch Gitesh Pandya's weekly box office preview on CNN International airing live each Thursday at 6:40pm ET.

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