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[John.]

Well Spider-Man 3 has been out now for 8 weeks and the box office figures make very interesting reading.

The first two Spider-Man films made about $800 million each in worldwide box office sales and the American and overseas box office figures were very similar.

Spider-Man 3 as of last weekend had taken $878 million in worldwide box office, but only $332 million of this via the American box office.

So despite very impressive overseas box office figures, and a record opening weekend in America, the American box office figures are significantly lower than either of the previous two films.

Now i've been giving these seemingly strange box office totals a bit of thought and i've got a few ideas (all of which are probably totally wrong !) re why this has happened, but I'd be interested to hear other peoples thoughts about the following two questions.

1. Why has Spider-Man 3 performed so (comparatively) poorly at the American box office ?.

2. Why has the film done so much better virtually everywhere else ?.

[mooniz]

john, are you a mind reader??? i asked myself the same!
but i can't give you an answer.
only one thought, maybe the japanese people ran into the cinemas
because they love spider-man.
i don't know it...

greets
ralf

[Glen]

Well I can't say it was not only just the hype of it though, probably it could be the mainstream on how we accept and look at foreign movies. If the masses liked the first two installments, then we can assure to ourselves a successful blockbuster on the third. A huge fanbase can also be a factor but I believe that would'nt do much alone either. There are more ways on how movies can be endorsed successfully outside American shores and I believe these are only a few.

[gkfi]

The running time and poor reviews hurt Spiderman's US boxoffice a little I think, that's always part of the reason why it had huge record-breaking boxoffice in the first week but dropped dramastically in the following weeks. Also, this summer in US had loads of sequels and blockbusters-- Shrek3, Pirates3 for example, most people just jumped to newly released movies rather than passionately rewatch Spidey again and again.

Well I can't say exactly why it done so well worldwide while been significantly lower in US , but most of the hollywood blockbusters, even some aren't so hyped as Spidey, did well in universal box office sales. Especially for a trilogy like Spiderman, if the masses liked the first two movies, they will definitely check out the third one. 

[hamlet]

I will shorten my answer a bit.  I think Peter forgiving Sandman was not something the public liked much, and you don't see too many superheroes forgiving the villain.  I think it was particularly not liked in America.

Hamlet

[rsvpjrdot]

Greetings,

I am late in answering, but this has been a subject of interest to me as well.

To date the only mainstream Kirsten movies that have done better overseas than in the US have been Interview with a Vampire (118M vs 105M), Anastasia (81M vs 58M), and Jumanji (164M vs 100M). 

Then, in 2006, we have Marie Antoinette, which was a HUGE movie overseas, and had an overseas box office advantage of 2.8 (45M vs 16M)!

And now Spider-Man 3, which is still in release, is still easily the years highest box office in the US, with 335M.  Overseas, it has already earned 551M!!  Worldwide, it will make the top 10 of ALL TIME in a week or two.

My current thinking is that non-US audiences are becoming more 'Hollywoodized', as all of the other current sequels have being doing better overseas than in the US as well - even though the originals did not.


Interesting topic. . .

Cheers,
- rsvpjrdot


"Amber, if I die from these fumes, will you make sure and cover up the hickies on my neck?"

[hamlet]

John, you forgot to mention why you think SPM 3 did relatively poorly in America and better in Europe, and everywhere else.

Hamlet

[John.]

hamlet you are quite correct. I could have sworn i posted my update several months ago (It's the forum gremlins i tell ya  ).

Anyway before i give my thoughts i'll post the approximate final box office figures for Spider-Man 3. The film grossed $336 million in the U.S and $554 overseas. These figures placed the film 15th on the all time U.S box office and 12th on the all time lists for both overseas and worldwide box office totals.
Perhaps even more interesting is that despite these figures the film will end up as the highest grossing film in the U.S in 2007 but only third in the worldwide box office for the year (behind those pesky pirates and Potter).
So clearly Spider-Man 3 wasn't the only film to incur this strange disparity at the box office.
Interestingly only Transformers seems to have (partially) bucked this trend and delivered similarly strong box office figures both in the U.S and overseas.

Ok so why did this happen?. Firstly thanks for all your replies. There were a couple of good points i hadn't considered.

As well as the points raised I'd suggest the following factors may well have contributed to this box office balance.
1. The exchange rate. In 2007 ?1 english has been worth nearly $2 U.S. When Spider-Man 2 was out for instance ?1 english would only have been worth about $1.60 U.S, and similar changes have occured between the U.S dollar and many other currencies.
So virtually every ticket sold at overseas cinemas this year would equate to more U.S dollars than in recent years.
2. The film was heavily promoted overseas. I don't think anyone can doubt that the film was marketed far more heavily on a worldwide basis compared to the first two films. Aside from all the premieres and promotional work the film was heavily advertised throughout the world.
3. The film was aimed at a worldwide audience. This is just my opinion but i got the feeling that Sony (shall we say) put pressure on Sam Raimi to make a more dumbed down film compared to Spider-Man 2. I think Sony wanted a film aimed at a slightly younger audience than the second film, with less talking and more action. Sadly, in my opinion, they got their way.
4. Word of mouth for the film in the States wasn't that great. Now i don't know this for a fact but i've seen many comments eminating from the States saying that the word of mouth for the film was pretty poor. The fact that the film made almost half it's total gross in the first weekend suggests this was the case. Possibly expectations after the second film were too high.
5. Did Sony overdo the New York connection?. Now this is one our U.S based members might be able to comment on. I got the feeling during the U.S promotion that instead of being a film for the whole of America it came across as a film for New York. All the promotion work was done there, the premiere was there, and there was a whole week of Spidey related madness. Elsewhere (as far as i could tell) ziltch.
I'd love to see the figures for each state for Spider-Man 3 and compare them to the 2 earlier films.

Anyway that's my thoughts on the matter. To put things in perspective the film made a shedload of money and will no doubt make even more from the DVD sales etc.   

[rsvpjrdot]

Greetings,

Thanks John, I enjoyed reading your rationalizations.

I would have to disagree with your points 4 and 5, however.  After all, it is the highest grossing film in the US for 2007.  In a year of so many big budget movies, that is not a trivial achievement.  Let's not forget that it shattered 19 box office records - 17 of which it still holds!!

Cheers,
- rsvpjrdot


"Everybody needs help sometimes, Peter. Even Spider-Man."

[John.]

Heh well we'll have to agree to disagree. Especially re point 4.

Actually i did forget one other factor. In the U.S 3 of the years expected 4 big films were released within 3 weeks of one another. This wasn't quite the case outside the U.S where one of the films (Shrek 3) was released a couple of weeks later.

I find it baffling why the rival studios did this. All they achieved was to slightly dent the box office totals of all 3 films. The box office success of the film 300, which was released
during a 'quiet' month for cinema releases, demonstrates that the audiences will go to see a 'good' film no matter when in the year it's released.

[gkfi]

This summer's blockbuster sequels are simply too much! Audiences got tired of all these big budget action flicks easily.

John, as you mentioned, 300 became a box office success during a relatively 'quiet' month. If you go check the Top 10 domestic gross movies so far, you would find another movie called Wild Hogs which also released in March get a spot on the list. Maybe Hollywood studios should eventually change their opinion about the "good-timing" for a movie release after all.

The main reasons Spider3 becomes the highest grossing film in the US for 2007 in my opinion are:
1. It's the first blockbuster of this summer.
2. 3 years of anticipation after the critical and boxoffice success of Spiderman2
3. Sony's promotion strategy
4. Well, no matter how the final product turned out to be, Spidey will always be the Amazing Spiderman

I do think Sony promoted SM3 far more heavily overseas, especially compared to the first two. They even had its world premiere in Japan.

[mooniz]

'spider-man 3' lost the first position to 'the dark knight' to be the movie with the best weekend start of all time.
'spider-man 3' had 151,1 mio dollar and 'the dark knight' made now 155,4 mio dollar on the first weekend.
too poor....

greets
ralf

[Roswell Crash Survivor]

I have a very belated and unconventional hypothesis.

The reason's for Spider-Man (2002) success can be attributed to human tragedy of 9/11.

A well-known superhero wearing a red, white and blue costume selflessly dedicating himself to protecting New York City.

Even more controversial is that the Green Goblin was a interpretative proxy of Islam.

The U.S market flocked to see Spider-Man 2 to get a 'booster shot' of sorts. It was at the start of the Second Gulf War / Invasion of Iraq.

With, the generally low feelings of U.S national solidarity - the horror of 9/11 was slowly fading , and the War on terror fast becoming a farce and the plunging support for the Bush Administration, Spider-Man 3 lacked a draw card.

[gkfi]

Definitely an interesting hypothesis, RCS.