Spider-Man takes a fall but still hangs tough

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LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Even when he takes a huge fall, Spider-Man comes out on top.
Sony's Spider-Man 3 took in $60 million in its second weekend, a hefty 60 percent drop from its record debut a week earlier but good enough to easily outdistance the competition and remain the No. 1 movie, according to studio estimates Sunday.

After a record-breaking opening weekend, to me this is an appropriate second-weekend drop, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. Any studio would be happy to have a movie opening with $60 million, let alone a second weekend with $60 million.
With $242.

1 million domestically in just 10 days, Spider-Man 3 continued to beat the box-office pace of its predecessors. After 10 days, 2002's Spider-Man had grossed $223 million, while 2004's Spider-Man 2 had taken in $225 million.
Spider-Man 3 quickly became the year's top-grossing film, hurtling past 300, the Warner Bros.

battle epic that has taken in $208 million.
Second-weekend drops for successful studio films typically are well below 50 percent. But Spider-Man 3 shattered records with $151.

1 million in its first weekend, making a big decline virtually inevitable since so many people already had seen the film.
When you're in that stratosphere, we had to assume we would be in the range of a 60 percent drop, said Rory Bruer, head of distribution for Sony.
The weekend's other new movies had fair to poor openings.

Debuting in second place with $10 million was Fox Atomic's horror sequel 28 Weeks Later, a follow up to 28 Days Later that continues the story of a virus in Britain that turns people into raging, cannibalistic zombies.
Universal's Georgia Rule, starring Lindsay Lohan, Jane Fonda and Felicity Huffman, opened at No. 3 with $5.

9 million. Lohan plays a rebellious teen who's put under the charge of her no-nonsense grandma (Fonda). ( )
Lionsgate's Delta Farce premiered at No.

5 with $3.5 million. Larry the Cable Guy stars in the comedy about three weekend warriors mistakenly dumped in Mexico, where they take on a gang of bandits.

The Weinstein Co. and MGM's workplace comedy The Ex tanked with $1.4 million, coming in at No.

12. The movie stars Zach Braff as a husband dueling with a co-worker who also is his wife's ex-boyfriend.
Spider-Man 3 made up for an otherwise soft crop of movies.

The top-12 films took in $96.9 million, up 14 percent from the same weekend last year, when Mission: Impossible 3 was No. 1 with $25 million and Poseidon debuted in second place with $22.

2 million.
Overseas, Spider-Man 3 pulled in an additional $85.5 million for the weekend, raising its international total to $380 million and worldwide total to $622 million.

The previous Spider-Man movies each took in about $800 million worldwide, a number Spider-Man 3 should easily beat.
Spider-Man 3 has a shot at topping $1 billion worldwide, Bruer said. Only three other movies, Titanic, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, have hit that mark.

After two weekends of light competition, Spider-Man 3 faces the summer's next heavy-hitter Friday with the debut of DreamWorks Animation's Shrek the Third, the latest adventure of the cartoon ogre.
A week later, Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End sails into theaters, the Johnny Depp action comedy joining Spider-Man 3 and Shrek the Third to set up what could be Hollywood's biggest Memorial Day weekend ever.
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