Hollywood's superhero blockbuster Spider-Man 3 smashed
the box-office records everywhere, including China, sources from
Sony Pictures Entertainment in China told China.org.cn.
Spider-Man 3 landed on the Chinese mainland at midnight on
May 1 just in time to cash in on China's 7-day Labor Day holiday
season with no heavyweight competitors.
Sources at Sony Pictures in China estimate that the webslinger
has already netted at least 70 million yuan (US$9.08 million) in
just 6 days. The film also broke the all-time US opening week box
office records with over US$151 million.
Sony Pictures' China branch now is expecting the film could
continue to sweep the box offices and eventually earn over 100
million yuan (US$12.99 million) on the mainland.
Its two predecessors, Spider-Man (2002) and Spider-Man
2 (2004), only raked in 43 million (US$5.58 million) and 55
million yuan (US$7.14 million) in total respectively during their
entire runs in China. Spider-Man 3 has produced a record
over 520 copies, including the IMAX version, for Chinese cinemas,
which helped guarantee the success.
Previous record holders are The Da Vinci Code, which
earned 12 million yuan (US$1.55 million) on opening day and 007's
latest Casino Royale, which set a new record early this year
with 45 million yuan (US$5.84 million) in the opening week.
Spider-Man 3 also broke box office records across eight
Asian markets on last Tuesday. In South Korea and China's Hong
Kong, the picture set new marks for the biggest opening day, taking
in 3.2 billion won (US$3.4 million) and HK$7.5 million
(US$960,000), respectively. Sales in Singapore, the Philippines,
Malaysia and Thailand were the highest for any single day, opening
or otherwise. Leading the way was Japan, where its opening-day
sales of 415 million yen (US$3.5 million) ranked as the biggest for
a Tuesday opening.
With US$59.3 million on opening day Friday, Spider-Man
3 broke the single-day box-office record in the United States,
previously held by last summer's blockbuster Pirates of the
Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest with US$55.8 million in its first
day.
Spider-Man 3 reunites director Sam Raimi, who also made
the previous two installments, and stars Tobey Maguire and Kirsten
Dunst.
"Sam Raimi is a genius," Amy Pascal, Sony Pictures co-chairman
said to Reuters. "I could have never envisioned this. What I was
hoping was we would just break the Spider-Man 1 record.
This is beyond my wildest dream."
Also among the records smashed by Spider-Man 3 was a
US$4.8 million domestic gross at huge-screen IMAX theaters, topping
the previous best of US$3.6 million set by 300 in March.
Playing at a record 4,252 locations domestically, Spider-Man
3 averaged a whopping US$34,807 a theater.
Domestically, Spider-Man 3 could enter its second
weekend Friday with US$200 million already in the bank in the US.
The film has the market largely to itself for the next week and a
half, with no major competition arriving until DreamWorks
Animation's Shrek the Third arrives May 18.
With Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and an
onslaught of other potential blockbusters following, studio
executives predict this could be a record summer for modern
Hollywood.
The weekend's only other new wide release, the romantic drama
Lucky You from Warner Bros., bombed with US$2.5 million to
come in at No. 6.
Directed by Curtis Hanson, Lucky You stars Drew Barrymore
as a budding Las Vegas singer, Eric Bana as skilled gambler, and
Robert Duvall as his estranged father in a tale set against the
World Series of Poker.
(Agencies via China Daily, China.org.cn by Zhang
Rui?May 8, 2007)
