Cool...now they'll make the sequel with War Machine.

Next time, baby.

Easy Chris, I haven't seen Spidey 3 yet.

Then again I haven't seen Iron Man yet either....sigh

Congrats to Iron Man though those are HUGE #'s......does that make it the biggest opening film now or what?

It's the second-biggest opening weekend for a non-sequel, about $10 mil or so from Spider-Man's opening.

And yes, I realize they are just creating the most ridiculous statistical categories ever. I'm waiting to hear on the news or read that the next summer blockbuster is "the biggest opening for a part 2 opening on the second Friday of the month when the star is over 40 years old."

Spiderman 3 makes a great drinking game: Everytime Peter Parker looks like the lost member of Fall Out Boy, drink. Everytime Peter Parker dances, drink. Everytime you check the DVD box to double check that this is the same director, drink.

I didn't think Spider-Man 3 was that bad, I just didn't like that it was a complete ripoff of Superman 2. I like the first Spider-Man movie the best since it had a depressing ending. Spider-Man should always end on a down note. He's a lovable loser.

I love it when that rare movie gets through Hollywood without the happy ending.

I agree, I didn't hate Spiderman 3. It had way too much going on and the "hip" Peter Parker was a little corny, but I thought it was a fun flick. I had been waiting for Venom for soo long, and he was pretty wicked, although I wish it was just him as the villain. 3 villains is too much for any movie.

Now if they do part 4 and just focus on Venom and/or Carnage, that would be awesome.

Okay...I gotta know how you saw Spider-Man 3 as a ripoff of Superman II, because off the top of my head I don't remember any plot points or story arcs even nearing each other.

Victory, those things you mentioned were the problems with it. I've mentioned here a few times that the black suit story was such a revered story that it deserved much more than it got.

In the comics the suit morphed into whatever clothes Peter wanted them to...it psychically linked itself to him, which was part of the problem for Peter. It tried to take over his body. In this one, they inexplicably lost that arc. Why? I mean, the thing is already an alien, is it no more believable that it could turn into regular clothes? It would have allowed Raimi to do away with that ridiculous "rubbing the costume" thing Peter did.

And it should have been SCARY, not silly. No dancing, or if there's dancing it has to end with symbiote Spidey almost killing someone--like Sandman. I mean a merciless, brutal beating. Make him almost become Venom.

I think Avi Arad pushed too much for Raimi, who didn't like Venom as a character in the first place (too "new school" for him apparently), to include Venom.

The result was this half-hearted attempt to shoehorn him in, and (SPOILER) killing him off the way they did. While he was there he was fine, but he wasn't the bad dude he was in the comics.

It wasn't a terrible summer movie, but it was too by-the-numbers and lazy. I'm actually hoping Raimi steps away now and gives someone else a crack at it.

Superman II rules! Just saying.

If they were to do justice to the suit story they would have got crazy in depth, and had Mr. Fantastic show up to help him figure out how to remove it, but then you got to have some Secret Wars explanation as to where it came from and all that.

But the symbiote itself isn't necessarily evil, it just enhances the abilities of whoever it is on, so the unstable people like Brock become even more evil and Spiderman just had some angry thoughts about losing Mary Jane and other memories and those came out. So dancing might be as evil as Peter Parker gets, while smashing skulls is Brock's cup of tea.

But didn't Peter become more aggressive with the suit on as well? He became aloof, uncaring, selfish, all traits that would lead to aggression in protecting your own interests (and it was shown to a degree with his fights with Sandman and Harry).

Whether the symbiote itself is evil or not is a more philosophical question (though it's certainly malignant from Peter's perspective). But he did exhibit more aggressive behavior in the black suit. My problems were that it felt like he didn't quite go far enough. He should have really hurt someone. Harry was a good place to go, but it's not enough, and he didn't do enough to hurt Harry. It was like a one-second decision that led to Harry being hurt.

I'm sitting here thinking, The Sin Eater would have been a terrific cameo in this film as the guy that Spidey went dark on. He's a serial killer from the comics that signified the time when Spider-Man went too far and crippled an ordinary man. He let his rage blind him and he really hurt someone. He wouldn't have been a full-fledged villain, but more of a secondary arc that ties in with Peter's going out of control.

Oh, and on the subject of Mr. Fantastic and all of that, I don't necessarily expect it to be completely true to the comics...I actually like the take the 90s cartoon took, which was VERY similar to SM3's take on it as far as creating Venom and Spidey shedding the symbiote. It forgot about the Secret Wars (though it brought them out a few seasons later), but had John Jameson bring the symbiote back with him on a space shuttle mission.

But the 90s cartoon used the bell tower scene, but Spidey had actually webbed up Brock previously, and the symbiote fell on him that way. If you go back and watch that, you can see Spidey going further than he usually does in fighting Rhino and Shocker. At one point the symbiote kind of took over and tried to kill Shocker.

I think the moral of the story is: Spider-man 3 was grossly underdone. It still saddens me how lame the emo Spidey was. I miss Doc Ock.

The whole Disco Parker thing sickened me. It ruined it all and went on and on and on, I wanted to walk out and scream. I don't even remember the rest of the movie because of that part. shudder

Emo Spidey ... I like that. Funny how a conversation about Iron Man became a cathartic release of frustration regarding the Spiderman3 misfire.

I blame Rictor...no, wait, Chris did bring it up initially.

But then again, I mentioned it in my review of Iron Man. I guess we all share the blame.

I'm sorry, Spider-Man 2 ripped off Superman II, not Spider-Man 3. In Spider-Man 2, Spidey basically gives up his powers for love (maybe subconsciously) the way Superman gave up his powers for Lois in Superman II.

Spider-Man 3 reminded me of Superman 3, with the black suit replacing artificial Kryptonite as the source of Spider-Man's wacky, out-of-character behavior.

I just think there are a lot of parallels you can draw between the series, which would make sense as I believe the Superman trilogy had a large influence on Raimi. A paper could probably be written about how the Superman films influenced all super hero movies that came after them and Spider-Man in particular.

When watching the films, I'd just get this deja vu feeling and think of Superman every once in a while. I'm not sure if it was intentional on Raimi's part or not.

Edit: I did a quick Google search and found at least one paper has actually been written on the subject, so I'm not the only one who thinks this way: http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu/~nr03/spiderman-superman.htm

If plans don't go bad, I will be seeing this tomorrow at Tibbs!!!