'Spidey' pays off on huge budget gamble with a $151 million opening weekend

LOS ANGELES — The whopping $258 million it cost to make "Spider-Man 3" looks like a sound investment after the film shattered box-office records with $151.1 million domestically and $382 million worldwide in just days.

Final numbers Monday came in even higher than distributor Sony Pictures' figures on Sunday, when the studio estimated that "Spider-Man 3" took in $148 million domestically for the weekend and had pulled in $375 million worldwide since it began debuting overseas last Tuesday.

The third film about the Marvel Comics superhero soared past the previous record holder, "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," which debuted with $135.6 million domestically last July.

"Spider-Man 3" also easily surpassed the $114.8 million opening weekend of "Spider-Man" in 2002, which had held the record until "Dead Man's Chest" sailed in.

Soaring budget costs are the norm for a movie business that relies more and more on action-packed spectacles. Such franchise films have a ready-made audience that Hollywood can count on to turn up in huge numbers, diminishing the risks of their enormous budgets.

"The movies cost what they need to cost in order to tell the story that we set out to tell," said Amy Pascal, Sony co-chairman. "There were a lot of big effects in this movie that required a kind of scale."

The film set a new single-day record of $59.8 million domestically in its Friday debut, topping the $55.8 million opening day of "Dead Man's Chest." "Spider-Man 3" also had the biggest day ever worldwide with $117.6 million Saturday.

Domestically, "Spider-Man 3" drew more people over opening weekend — 22.5 million — than any film ever has, according to an average ticket price of $6.70 estimated by box-office tracker Media By Numbers.

By comparison, 20.7 million people saw "Dead Man's Chest" over opening weekend based on last year's average ticket price of $6.55. The 2002 average ticket price of $5.80 translates to 19.8 million people catching "Spider-Man" in its first weekend.

Sony would not disclose how much was spent to promote the film, but the studio's marketing mill was relentless, blanketing theaters, television and the Internet with trailers, teasers and other ads for "Spider-Man 3."

The studio played up Spider-Man's struggle with a new enemy — himself. Fans were intrigued by posters showing a black mirror image of Spidey's red-and-blue outfit for the film, in which he is tempted to use his powers for evil after an alien entity infects his suit.