This year has already proven to be a big one for comic book movies. Released the first weekend of this month, Marvel Studios' Captain America: The Winter Soldier has made $645 million globally already and is still climbing. We're still waiting to see how well Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is going to do here in the States, but it's already off to a great start overseas.
Box Office Mojo has tallied up the numbers and is now reporting that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has already made $132 million from overseas theaters. The biggest contributors to this total are the United Kingdom (approximately $15 million) and Mexico (approximately $10 million), but other markets include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and Uruguay.
While $132 million is nothing to scoff at, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 still has a long way to go before it can be considered a success. A report from Deadline last week said that the film's budget was about $255 million and that somewhere between $180-190 million was spent on marketing. This means that the movie has thus far only managed to make back 30% of what it cost. Obviously the movie is still in the very earliest stages of release, but there's still a long road for the movie to travel.
If the first Amazing Spider-Man is anything to go by, Amazing Spider-Man 2 shouldn't have any trouble making its budget back. Made for a slightly lower cost - $230 million - the movie wound up bringing in $262 million domestically and $490 million foreign for a grand total of $752 million. These numbers were boosted by big performances in countries like South Korea, Russia, Japan, France, India, Brazil and China, none of which have seen The Amazing Spider-Man 2 yet. Expect the wall crawler to make a lot more money by the time it exits its last theater.
As for the upcoming American release, the film is coming out on what has been proven to be the prime summer release date. Two years ago Marvel Studios set an opening weekend record when The Avengers managed to pull in $212 million in its first few days, and then last year Iron Man 3 came out the first weekend of May and made $174 million. The buzz on The Amazing Spider-Man 2 isn't as big as it was on those two movies, but there's still plenty of potential.
Directed by Marc Webb, the new comic book movie sees Andrew Garfield return to the titular superhero role and continue the adventures of Peter Parker as he is balancing between his complicated relationship with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), graduating from high school, seeing the return of his old friend Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan) and being a full-time masked vigilante. Jamie Foxx, Campbell Scott, Embeth Davidtz, Colm Feore, Paul Giamatti and Sally Field co-star in the movie, which is based on a script by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.
