'Scorpion King' Stings the Competition

May 6 -- Everyone expected Spider-Man to open big, but not this big — the Marvel Comics hero's eagerly awaited big screen debut pulled in $114 million, topping the three-day record set by Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone last year by nearly $25 million.

Saturday's spider-haul set a new single-day benchmark for a movie as well: $43.7 million, more than $10 million over Potter's record of $33.5 million.

As late as Wednesday, pundits were predicting a $70-$80 million haul for Spider-Man. $90 million was considered a slight possibility, $100 million a remote one.

For a movie to do so well without support from a holiday weekend is unprecedented to say the least. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones has a lot to live up to now, though its Thursday opening (on May 16) should give it something of a leg up.

Needless to say, Spider-Man's massive debut had a pulverizing effect on the competition: the other two new releases to make the top 10 — Deuces Wild (number 7 with $2.7 million) and Woody Allen's Hollywood Ending (number 10 with $2.2 million) were essentially dead on arrival, while the halfway-decent numbers for returning films such as The Scorpion King, Changing Lanes and The Rookie probably had a lot to do with folks who'd been sold out of Spider-Man being forced to take what they could get.

Everyone's favorite webhead is likely to keep swinging next weekend — the last before Star Wars comes to town — as neither the Richard Gere/Diane Lane erotic thriller Unfaithful or the lowball comedy The New Guy is targeted at the same audience.

Andrew Johnston is a film critic and associate editor at US WEEKLY magazine.