In spite of a stellar 26% rise in revenue and an 88% jump in operating income, Sony Pictures' strong performance was not enough to overcome sagging earnings from other divisions of the huge Japanese company.  Although Spider-Man helped raise Sony Pictures revenues to $6.7 billion, Sony's overall revenue slipped 1.4% to $62 billion and operating income was 25% below the figure that Sony had predicted.  Sony Music suffered an operating loss of $72 million, while the Electronics division suffered a 6.5% sales drop and revenue from the Games division fell 4.9% as Sony cut the price on its Playstation II to meet competition from Microsoft's X-Box.  As a result of its failure to meet its own revenue projections Sony's stock price dropped roughly 14%.

Although Sony did not break out the revenue from Spider-Man, the film, which took in over $400 million in domestic box office revenues and even more from DVD sales, was undoubtedly the major contributor to Sony Pictures revenue, a fact that was acknowledged by Sony in its admission that Sony Pictures' revenue won't be able to match its current performance until the Spider-Man sequel buoys income during Sony's 2004-2005 fiscal year.