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 | | Sunday, 5 May, 2002, 19:04 GMT 20:04 UK Spider-Man snares box office records  Spider-Man opens in the UK in June The eagerly-awaited Spider-Man film has broken cinema box office records in its opening weekend, beating previous holder Harry Potter. The live action adaptation of the comic-book hero's exploits has taken $114m (�77.57m) in its first three days in the US and Canada, according to studio estimates. Columbia Pictures, the studio behind the movie, said Spider-Man had beaten both single day and weekend records of Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone - known as The Sorcerer's Stone in the North America. The first instalment of the wizarding tale took $90.3m (�61.4m) in its first three days when it opened in November 2001. Spider-Man stars Tobey Maguire as student Peter Parker, who gets bitten by a genetically-modified spider and transformed into the webbed superhero.
Equal split The comic-book character first appeared in 1962, and creator Stan Lee is still working at the age of 79, as chairman emeritus of Marvel Comics. Columbia marketing executive Jeff Blake said the audience over the weekend had been evenly split between males and females with all ages interested in seeing the superhero on the big screen. Spider-Man took $43.7m (�29.7m) on Saturday, beating Harry Potter's single day record of $33.5m (�22.8m). Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, as it is known in the US, has so far taken $317.3m (�215.9) since release but it still has a long way to go to beat Titanic's box office record of $600m (�408m). Spider-Man opens in the UK on 14 June. It will face stiff competition from Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, which is released worldwide on 16 May. | | See also:  Internet links: The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites Top Film stories now:  Links to more Film stories are at the foot of the page. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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