I was referring to the comparison of numbers between Spider-Man movies when there wasn't as much competition to the numbers of Spider-Man when there is a lot of competition.
Not comparison to other franchises.
But that is highly relevant to the matter at hand though? The Spider-Man franchise is not the only one getting more competition than when it first started and yet it is the only long standing franchise declining in this day an age. That means that there must be other factors at play here to explain this continuous decline. Then again, aside from Spider-Man in 2002, Spider-Man 2 opened to 6 cbms films in 2004 and Spider-Man 3 to 5 cbms in 2007. That is not an entirely different landscape either.
If you just compare this movie to the other comic book movies in the current market then Spider-Man is mostly doing as well as them, it makes less than some and more than others and sometimes the difference is only a few million (not counting budget, advertising and so on just box office gross).
The problem is not the raw number in itself but the downwoard trajectory in a context of global growth for films in the genre (if you discard the budget, but again if you don't, then it doesn't allow the film to break even so it is a major problem, even out of context). What is going to happen for the Spider-Man franchise when audiences will really start showing "cbm fatigue" ? If it is declining in a context where cbm films have never been stronger that is a worrying perspective to say the least.
Amazing Spider-Man 2 made less than Amazing Spider-Man amongst almost the same competition, there is no denying that but Spider-Man (2002) opened to one other CBM (Blade II) while Amazing Spider-Man 2 opened along with SIX other CBMs (GOTG, TWS, DOFP, Sin City 2, TNMT, 300). So in that regard I think it was inevitable that the franchise would go into decline over the years.
Most current franchises didn't have the luxury of being one of two CBMs and having 50% of the market, Spider-Man did so the numbers of the franchise were bound to go down once more and more CBMs opened each year diluting the market.
Like I said you are ignoring the fact the market is much bigger these days than it was back in 2002. The cbm market has not been magically given a fixed value that hasn't moved since 2002 and is being split between releases diluting the share of each films as more cbm films are being released each year. That is not how it works since the market has grown exponentially from being worth 976.7M back in 2002 to 3.4 billions last year (and 3.5 billions in 2012). Super hero films are making far more business these days than they did back in 2002 regardless of the number of films released each year.
This franchise has gone from having 50% of the market in 2002 to 14% in 2014.
No. Spider-Man's had 84% of the market, Spider-Man 2 59%, Spider-Man 3 43.6% (and yet it is the highest grossing Spider-Man film ever, so you can see that getting a smaller share of the market doesn't necessarily imply getting less money or declining as a all when the market is expanding) and TASM got 21.4%. TASM2 should get about the same this year but with lower numbers.
Amazing Spider-Man has set the number to be matched or exceeded as the competition is usually the same now as it was then. So all Spider-Man movies Box Office from now on should be in comparison to that movies gross rather than the Raimi trilogy which existed in a different market.
Let me get this straight. What you are saying is that the "goal" for a sequel that cost a lot more to produce than a well received reboot is to gross the same as said reboot ? Really ? You really think that Sony investing 90 millions more or so expected TASM2 to gross about the same as TASM ? This is not how the movie business works. TASM set nothing. The goal for the Spider-Man franchise given the amount of money invested in these films, the overall popularity of the character, which is still Marvel's flagship, is to get back on top. Period.
You can low-ball your personnal expectation all you want that doesn't make these series numbers any less of dissapointment compared to current standards in the genre and the past numbers of films in the franchise. What's the next step in low-balling ? Next time if the movie reaches 650M WW we'll pop the champagne even if it cost 275M+ to make ? What is the floor for you guys to consider that the BO is a dissapointment ? Back in 2012 it was "at least it made 750M" today it is "at least it made 700M". How much lower will you be willing to go not to face the reality of the numbers ?
It hasn't disappointed in comparison to other CBMs gross this year as it is second only by $10 million.
Best case scenario it will end up in 3rd place against two sequels coming from films that grossed less than 371M WW back in 2011. Yeay !
And given that it has a fair chance to fall off the 2014 top 10 domestically (if either Maleficent or 22 Jump Street, or both break 200M it would pretty much be a done deal), which would be unprecedented for any film in the franchise BTW, I would say that it dissapointed badly against other cbm films this year and against other films in general.
What Sony will be wanting to do it with ASM3 is to make it earn that $50 Million (ideally more) to exceed ASM gross and go from 2nd place to 1st place.p of that year
You do realize that there is no chance AT ALL for TASM3 to outgross either Captain America 3/Batman v. Superman/X-Men Apocalypse if it is released in 2016 or a Justice League film in 2017 ? It'll be a long time before you see another Spider-Man film taking the top spot. That is one of the consequences of having a franchise declining while others are growing.
