Because of the Olympics (and the earlier European Football Championships) the global rollout of this summer’s Hollywood blockbusters has been delayed resulting in a logjam that creates the kind of head-to-head match-ups studio heads here avoid like the plague.  But this sort of mano-a-mano competition is exactly what has happened in China where Sony’s Spidey reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man is up against Warner Bros.’ The Dark Knight Rises.  It appears that Marc Webb’s Spider-Man took the first skirmish handily opening to $5.5 million versus $4.5 million for Christopher Nolan’s final Batman movie.
 
Of course The Dark Knight Rises may end up earning more money in China than The Amazing Spider-Man.  Certainly TDKR has done far better here in North America where it is currently at $422.2 million versus $258.3 for the Spidey reboot, though overseas (at least so far) the two films are not nearly that far apart ($519 million for TDKR versus $446.5 million for The Amazing Spider-Man).
 
The major point to take away from all this is that overseas markets are growing in importance to Hollywood, and with the delayed overseas rollout it is too early to make judgments about the overall performance of either The Amazing Spider-Man or The Dark Knight Rises.  Because of the shootings in Aurora, Colorado Nolan’s final Batpic got off to a slower than expected start here in the States, and there is little chance that it will be able to match its predecessor’s domestic total of $533.3 million.  However have earned $519 million outside North America at this point, The Dark Knight Rises has already outperformed The Dark Knight, which earned just $469.7 million overseas in its entire run.  In fact The Dark Knight Rises, which has already amassed a cumulative of $941.2, may finish with a larger global total than The Dark Knight, which ended up with worldwide earnings of just over $1 billion.
 
As for The Amazing Spider-Man, it has now earned $705 million worldwide against a cost of $230 million, which means that the film is solidly profitable.  While it may not be able to match the total of Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man movie, which earned $821.7 million, it has already outperformed Raimi’s film overseas and will continue to close the gap as its delayed rollout continues over the next few weeks.