The Big Picture

• Domestic theaters saw a unique line-up with five older movies playing, including Shrek 2 and Spider-Man 3.
• Sony's Spider-Man 3 re-release grossed $760,000 from 466 theaters, sandwiched between the first two movies.
• Spider-Man 3 has a current global gross of $895 million, aligning with Spider-Man 2.

As many as five older movies, including Shrek 2, The Mummy, Alien, and Spider-Man 2, were playing in domestic theaters on Monday, in what has to have been a first at the box office. The latest in this string of re-releases was Sony’s Spider-Man 3, the third in the ongoing “Spider-Mondays” festival to celebrate the studio’s centenary year. Sony re-released the first and second movies of director Sam Raimi’s wildly popular trilogy over the last couple of Mondays, and will continue the series with the remaining five live-action Spider-Man movies across the next month or so.

But now, three movies down — and Raimi’s trilogy having run its course — we have a clear idea of which film did better than the others, and which of the three has had a stronger cultural impact over the years. Spider-Man 3 finds itself sandwiched between Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, with a Monday gross of $760,000 from 466 domestic theaters, which represents a strong $1,600-plus per-theater average. By comparison, the first Spider-Man film grossed $681,000 from the same number of theaters, for a per-theater average of nearly $1,500, while the Spider-Man 2 re-release generated $805,000 on its Monday, for a per-theater average of around $1,700.

The 'Spider-Man' Movies Have Grossed Nearly $9 Billion Globally

While this doesn’t align with how these three movies performed in their original theatrical runs, it certainly captures the sheer popularity of Spider-Man 2, far and away the stand-out installment of Raimi’s trilogy, which featured Tobey Maguire in the titular role. Spider-Man 2 is something of a classic of the superhero genre, while Spider-Man 3 was widely considered to be the least-impressive entry of the original trilogy. Released in 2007, the movie's current global gross stands at $895 million, of which $337 million has come from domestic theaters. At the time of its release, it was the most expensive movie ever made, with a reported budget between $250 million and $350 million. The first Spider-Man film has grossed $822 million worldwide, while Spider-Man 2 has grossed $795 million worldwide. These figures include the recent re-release hauls.

Raimi and Maguire were expected to return for a fourth film, which ultimately fell apart. The series was rebooted in 2012, with The Amazing Spider-Man, directed by Marc Webb and starring Andrew Garfield in the central role. Webb and Garfield returned for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which is widely considered to be the least-liked live-action Spider-Man film of the lot, before passing the baton to director Jon Watts and star Tom Holland, who collaborated on three solo Spider-Man movies that were also a part of the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Combined, the live-action Spider-Man movies have grossed nearly $8 billion worldwide. Factoring in the global grosses of the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the series has generated nearly $9 billion worldwide. Maguire and Garfield returned alongside Holland in Spider-Man: No Way Home a few years ago, while Raimi returned to superhero cinema with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness — his biggest-ever hit. Spider-Man 3 also featured Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, J.K. Simmons, Thomas Hayden Church, Elizabeth Banks, Topher Grace, Bryce Dallas Howard.

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