Reuters is reporting that online ticket sales for Spider-Man 3, which opens on May 4th, are running far ahead of advance sales for Spider-Man 2. According to Movietickets.com sales of Spider-Man 3 are three times the sales of the second Spider-Man film during the same time frame (2 weeks before opening). Another movie ticket site, Fandango.com reports that sales of Spidey 3 are four times the sales of its predecessor and accounted for 47% of all the tickets Fandango sold on Monday. Dozens of the more than 1,000 midnight showings are already sold out.
Strong advance sales don't always translate into humongous grosses and part of the increase in online sales is undoubtedly due to the increasing use of online ticket services. It is also part of a pattern that pushes more and more of the sales of blockbuster film to the film's opening weekend. Still, the sales do indicate that Spider-Man 3 will open very well, and that fans are willing to support sequels -- something that is important to the Hollywood studios, which have positioned three very expensive sequels (Spider-Man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, and Shrek the Third) during May at the very start of the all-important summer movie season that typically accounts for 40% of Tinseltown's annual take.
Spider-Man 3, which reportedly cost $250-$300 million, will have to rake in the big bucks just to break even, but since the first two Spider-Man films have brought in $1.6 billion in worldwide box office, Sony will likely turn a profit once again, especially when DVD and other post theatrical revenue streams are included in the calculation. The film has already opened in
