'Spider-Man' Beaten at the Box Office, but Still Fairly Amazing

“The Amazing Spider-Man 2" didn’t just get beat by the Seth Rogen-Zac Efron frat comedy "Neighbors" at the weekend box office, it got beat by many more millions than expected, an experience which, as they say in France (or in Hollywood), is pretty much the worst.

Heading into Mother’s Day weekend, “Neighbors,” which opened Friday, was expected to take the No. 1 spot with a three-day domestic take of maybe $35-$40 million, while “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” heading into its second weekend, was expected to drop not unlike a big, heavy rock.

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As things turned out, Spider-Man did indeed plunge (down 61 percent from its debut). But “Neighbors” soared like a superhero — not just to a good opening weekend, but to an eye-popping $49 million weekend, the 14th biggest debut ever for an R-rated movie.

So, Spider-Man took a kick to the costume-concealed teeth. And, yes, the critical consensus is that his latest movie is the least-good Spider-Man movie of them all. (As was widely noted, “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” posted even a lower Rotten Tomatoes score than the unloved, unfocused “Spider-Man 3” from the franchise’s Sam Raimi era.) And, yes, given its current trajectory, it seems unlikely the $200 million-ish “Amazing Spider-Man 2” will gross $200 million domestically (instead, it’ll probably top out at about $180 million). But in the end the hero will avoid an inglorious end.

"The bottom line is the total worldwide box office," says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for the box-office tracking firm Rentrak. "Spider-Man is absolutely going to be absolutely fine."

On Sunday, as “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” was losing the headlines to “Neighbors,” it was also notching its third straight weekend atop the international box office, where it passed $400 million. Its predecessor, 2012’s “The Amazing Spider-Man,” grossed $490 million during the entirety of its overseas run.

"The Amazing Spider-Man 2," standing at $146 million domestically after its first full 10 days in theaters (down from the $153 million that Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone’s original effort clocked in the same time period), will probably have to go a little north of $500 million internationally to reach the $700 million worldwide mark that all the previous Spider-Man movies have hit and exceeded.

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"Obviously, ‘Godzilla’ is coming, but I’m still thinking… $700 million or more is still possible," says Dergarabedian."… [And] I don’t know how you call $700 million an erosion of anything."

Indeed, if “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” hits that magic number, it’ll go down as either the 7th or 8th-biggest-grossing comic-book movie to star a Marvel Comics hero, per BoxOfficeMojo.com stats. (“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is currently in 7th place, with $695.7 million worldwide, and likely has the legs to stay ahead of its non-Cinematic Universe rival.)

Then there’s the arena where Spider-Man remains unsurpassed: the old-fashioned comic-book store. As reported by Comichron, Spider-Man is the star of the two top-selling books, “The Amazing Spider-Man” and “Superior Spider-Man.” Take that, shirtless Zac Efron.

Photos courtesy of Columbia Pictures and Universal Studios