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Jim Van Nest: I'm of two minds on this subject. Everything David says is true, which means this is technically a disappointment. But when I think about what my personal expectations were for it based on the needlessness of the film and a so-so trailer...I think this is a tremendous result, compared to what I expected.

Kim Hollis: I think it's very hard to call a movie that has accrued $137 million in less than a week a disappointment, and yet, it feels so... lacking. I think The Amazing Spider-Man always was going to have an uphill battle since it was truly too soon to reboot the franchise, and as such, I have to believe that the result is okay. I do think it's going to fall off a cliff from here, though. There's just not any buzz around the movie, even with the decent reviews.

Max Braden: If this were a new superhero movie, the numbers would be okay, but considering what this is, I'd call it a disappointment. It's not a revision of Batman vs the old Batman, and it's not a George-Lucas-esque "same movie but with updated technology!" It's just another Spiderman movie with a different cast and a different villain. It's not really new, but it's not really a sequel either. Compounding that problem, marketing chose to keep the villain fairly concealed, and unlike the original "great power, great responsibility" tagline, there's no good sense of what this Peter Parker's conflict is. I can't believe that if the producers had a crystal ball during initial discussion and knew that these would be the opening numbers they'd get after it was all done, that they'd consider the project worth pursuing. And I don't think it's worth pursuing a sequel to The Amazing Spider-man with the same team.

Jazz Hands: The Revenge

Kim Hollis: Based on your perception of recent events, do you believe the Spider-Man franchise has been redeemed?

David Mumpower: I consider three releases to be valid comparisons for this attempted Spider-Man reboot. Those titles are X-Men: First Class, Batman Begins and The Incredible Hulk. There are also three key facets to evaluating the popularity of such a title. Those are critical reception, movie revenue and fan reception. Let's start with X-Men: First Class. The X-Men reboot is 87% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 7.8 at IMDb and its box office is 81% of its immediate predecessor, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Using those same parameters, The Incredible Hulk is 67% at Rotten Tomatoes, 7.0 at IMDb and has virtually identical box office to Ang Lee's The Hulk. Batman Begins is 85% at Rotten Tomatoes, 8.3 at IMDB and its box office is almost double that of Batman & Robin. Using these barometers, we can compare The Amazing Spider-Man, which is 73% at Rotten Tomatoes, 7.7 at IMDb (this number will drop as non-fanboys watch it) and will earn roughly 80% of what Spider-Man 3 did. So, I view its quality as superior only to The Incredible Hulk and its box office roughly the same lost retention to X-Men: First Class.

That's the analytical side of the evaluation. On the social media side, I simply do not hear people talking what a good movie The Amazing Spider-Man is. Instead, the best of the endorsements it receives are along the lines of "Better than I expected", which is a backhanded compliment. Most consumers recognize that the magic word with a Spider-Man reboot is "pointless." This is a cash grab from Sony, whose bean counters missed the $2.5 billion they received from Spider-Man from 2002 to 2007. At one point, Spider-Man was such an important brand that the launch of the Playstation 3 was an elaborate tie-in with this character. Now that Disney owns the Marvel universe, Sony wanted to capitalize on the impending popularity of The Avengers with their iconic Peter Parker's return. He's back, but it doesn't seem like he was missed much. If another Amazing Spider-Man movie were released in 2014-2015, I would expect it to earn less money than this one rather than more, and that's the tell-tale sign the franchise has not been redeemed.

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