The Best Spider-Man Movie Just Made Bank At The Box Office

Just how much money are we talking about? Spider-Man 2 only grossed $805,000, but there is a reason for this relatively low amount: for whatever reason, Sony is giving each of Raimi’s iconic superhero films one-day-only re-releases, and that dramatically changes the math. Considering that the movie came out 20 years ago and was only released into select theaters on a Monday, $805,000 is an impressive haul, especially compared to the $681,000 earned by the re-release of the first Spider-Man.

Most fans are willing to admit that Spider-Man 2 is the best of this trilogy and arguably in the running for the best superhero film ever made. It didn’t have to tell an origin story like the first movie and didn’t have too many villains forced on it like the third movie, allowing Spider-Man 2 to tell a surprisingly intimate story involving Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus. His mad quest to harness the power of the sun threatens all of New York, and Spider-Man is caught in a frantic race to save the city while still saving the soul of a man who briefly served as his mentor.

Certainly, Spider-Man 2 is a film that won over critics in a big way. On Rotten Tomatoes, this Spidey sequel has a critical rating of 93 percent. At the time, critics raved about how the movie achieved the perfect balance of delivering a superhero melodrama grounded by real emotional stakes, a balance made even more enjoyable by the sad state of modern superhero cinema.

Back in the day, Spider-Man 2 even took home an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and was nominated for two more awards. This is the kind of acclaim that later Sony efforts like Madame Web were never destined to receive, and that’s likely part of the studio’s motivation. After both Morbius and Madame Web crashed and burned (it was not, and never would be, Morbin’ time), Sony likely wants to remind fans that, once upon a time, they were able to create good superhero films.

That doesn’t mean all of the films Sony plans to re-release are good. The studio is actually re-releasing every single Spidey film into theaters for these one-day-only releases, which will be a great chance to watch MCU films like Homecoming and No Way Home on the big screen again. However, before they get to the good stuff from the MCU, Sony will be re-releasing stinkers like Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2, both of which served as early reminders of how bad later films like Madame Web would get.

Of course, we understand that Spider-Man 3 has its fans, and there is a certain undeniable appeal to Peter Parker’s dirtbag emo persona. If you’d like to see this meme machine of a movie (including Venom’s live-action debut), you can catch Spider-Man 3 in select theaters on April 29, with a new re-release occurring every Monday. Watching it may give you the power to emulate Parker’s insane dance moves, but beware: with great power comes the great responsibility of not embarrassing yourself in public.

Then again, when you pay money to re-watch Spider-Man 3 again, your dignity is probably deader than Uncle Ben.