Coincidences in Spider-Man

There's a great review of Spider-Man 3 by a screenwriter. It's a fascinating perspective on things. I strongly suggest holding off on reading it until after you've seen the film, but you definitely have to read this (and what follows in the jump).

From JohnAugust.com

Like several million people worldwide, I saw Spider-Man 3 this past weekend. And like a substantial percentage of these viewers, I got frustrated by the number of unlikely coincidences in the movie.

There’s nothing wrong with coincidence, per se. Almost every movie is going to have some incidents where one character just happens to be in the right place at the right time. In fact, many movies are built around a “premise coincidence.” In Die Hard, John McClane just happens to be in the building when the villains attack. That’s okay. McClane’s being there is part of the premise. Likewise, in the original Spider-Man, Peter Parker just happens to get bitten by the radioactive spider. No problem: it wouldn’t be Spider-Man otherwise.

The premise coincidence is one flavor of what I’ll call a Fundamental Coincidence: an accidental confluence of time, place and motivation which greatly impacts the story.

In a romantic comedy, when The Guy would have proposed to The Girl except that he just happened to overhear a conversation he interpreted the wrong way, that’s a Fundamental Coincidence. In the first Spider-Man, Norman Osborn just happens to be transformed into The Goblin just as Peter is becoming Spider-Man. That’s a Fundamental Coincidence, but we accept it because it feels true to the genre.

WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS FOLLOW. (Mostly things you’d glean the trailers or ads, but still.)

Let’s look at the Fundamental Coincidences in Spider-Man 3:

• The asteroid carrying the symbiote (utlimately, Venom) happens to land near Peter Parker. Peter doesn’t hear it, doesn’t investigate.
• The symbiote happens to attach itself to Peter’s scooter.
• Flint Marko happens to fall into the sand pit at exactly the moment the scientists test their billion-dollar Dyson vacuum.¹
• Flint Marko happens to have been the man who killed Uncle Ben. (A retcon.)
• Eddie Brock happens to be the only person in the church at the moment Peter tries to get rid of the black suit.

Any one (or two) of these Fundamental Coincidences would probably go unnoticed, particularly in a superhero movie, where credibility takes a back seat to spectacle. But put together, they make the plot feel rickety, particularly when you factor in the large number of what I’ll call Minor Coincidences — things that don’t fundamentally change the story, but feel convenient all the same. (more)

Top Opening Days

Here’s the information you’ll want to know tomorrow.

These are the top Friday openings of all time (3-day totals in parenthesis).
I’ve included the other members of the top ten opening days group that opened on non-Fridays below.

1. Pirates 2 - $55M ($135.6M)
   
2. X3 - $45M ($102.7M)
   
3. Harry Potter 4 - $40M ($102.7M)
   
4. Spider-Man - $39M ($114.8M)
5. Harry Potter 3 - $38M ($93.7M)
6. Harry Potter 1 -$32M ($90.3M)

• Star Wars 3 - $50M (Thursday) ($108.4M)
• Spider-Man 2 - $40M (Wednesday) ($88.1M)
• Matrix 2 - $37M (Thursday) ($91.7M)
• LOTR 3 - $34M (Wednesday) ($72.6M)

Editor's note:
Where's Shrek 2? Shrek 2 opened on Friday with $28.4M. It's Saturday haul was $44.7M. It's weekend haul was $108M.

So here's the rundown:
If Spidey 3 has ties the biggest school-in-session Friday ($40M), the biggest Saturday ($47M), and the biggest Sunday ($35M) it will hit $122M...significant, but not a record. Spidey 3 has the widest opening ever, so each of these days can be beaten. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Spider-Man HSX trading at $138!

Hollywood Stock Exchange set the opening weekend strike price for Spider-Man 3 at $125M. It's call stock is now trading at just under $13/share. Put stock is trading at just under $4/share. The movie stock itself is trading at $366. Just for reference, last year's megahit, Pirates 2, cashed out at $358.

Meanwhile, they've set the Shrek 3 strike price at $105.

Final reminder: final posts for summer predictions are due tomorrow.

Spinning a Wider Web?

This surprised even me, but according to Nikke Finke over at the LA Weekly,

the first round of tracking for Spider-Man 3 is better than the first pulse that was registered for either Spidey 1 or 2 pics in this all-important Sony franchise.

Not sure if I'm going to update my Spider-Man estimates based on this report. I was guessing low because there isn't much precidence for an opening larger than $70M before mid-May, and with schools in session and what I'm guessing will be a 135mins+ running time, they're not going to be able to get huge Friday numbers that a $100M weekend would require.

Also interesting in her report is the rumors that Sony admits to paying at least $250M to make the film, meaning with P&A this thing's probably bigger than Superman.

My Favorite Movie?

Remember a couple years ago when Tim said War of the Worlds was his favorite movie ever, even before it was released? I'm not ready to say that about Spider-Man 3, but based on the themes in trailers (especially the revenge/forgive theme presented in this last trailer) and my absolute love for Spider-Man 2, I think we have a candidate for Best Movie of All Time. Seriously.

We'll have to wait and see...only 42 days, six hours, and 52 minutes to go!! Anyone up for an IMAX screening?

p.s. start working on your summer 2007 charts. We got about a month to go before we post them.

New Trailers

There are a couple good trailers out there.
First, there's the Bruce Almighty sequel: Evan Almighty. This one looks pretty good.

But even more promising is the Spider-Man 3 trailer. Man, I couldn't be more excited about this film.

So that's what we got until tomorrow when they release the Simpsons movie trailer and then next week when the Harry Potter 5 trailer's released.