Why bitchy 'fanboys' are the film fan equivalent of Bill Kristol.

I'm not going to get into the misogynistic aspect of the trolling centered around a few on-set photos of Shailene Woodley from The Amazing Spider-Man 2.  To those saying that she's not 'pretty enough' to be Mary Jane Watson, I'll simply extend a hearty 'f*ck you' and merely offer to be, wedding vows and relative current marital bliss aside, the next guy in line at the bar after you turn down her advances. But while others will justifiably focus on the offense at the trolling of a young actress having the gall to walk around without make up, I'd like to offer a bit of silver lining to this whole affair.  Now thanks to the Internet trolling, I can absolutely guarantee that not only will Shailene Woodley be insanely attractive as Mary Jane Watson in The Amazing Spider-Man, but she will also be a terrific character, in terms of acting and all of that 'less-important' stuff too.  Why do I know this?  Because the trolling fans have told me otherwise.  Trolling fans have been around for as long as I can remember.  And they have become the Bill Kristol of film fans.  They make noise, they attract attention and 'serious discussion', and they are always always wrong.

Weekend Box Office (01/13/13): Zero Dark Thirty tops while Gangster Squad disappoints and Haunted House overperforms.

After nearly a month in limited release, Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty (review) finally went wide this weekend and it grossed $24 million to top the weekend box office. The film now has a $29 million cume.  All eyes were on this one, with the big question being whether critical acclaim and film punditry would translate into mainstream interest.  Obviously the current 'does the movie promote torture?' controversy brought the film all kinds of free publicity, but I'd argue it scared off just as many as it brought it.  By the way, no it doesn't endorse torture because... well just watch the movie again (essay 01/essay 02)!  Anyway, the closest comparison is the Martin Luther King Day Jr. weekend wide-release debut of Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down eleven years ago next weekend, which pulled in $33 million over four days and $28 million over Fri-Sun.  The 'hunt for Bin Laden' film's debut is a bit lower, especially when inflation is accounted for (BHD's 3-day total is around $38 million in 2013 dollars), but the Scott picture was pretty much a nonstop action picture while Bigelow's is an icy and often cold 2.5 hour procedural where even the climactic action sequence is meant to disturb more than excite.  The film played 59% male and 62% over 30. Sony did a great job selling this one somewhat falsely as a triumphant action drama, although they didn't seem to make as much of an effort to bring in females for what is indeed a female-centric character drama (Jessica Chastain is terrific here).  Despite a merely okay  2.6x weekend multiplier, expect pretty strong legs as this becomes the defacto water-cooler Oscar contender (Oscar nomination essay 01/Oscar nomination essay 02), the one everyone has to see in order to participate in the national dialogue.

Review: The Gangster Squad (2013) is LA Confidential for kids.

The Gangster Squad

2013
110 minutes
rated R

by Scott Mendelson

I've long spoken of the irony of Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy being one of the most mature and adult comic book films ever released (essay).  Despite its PG rating and primarily colors-centric art direction, it's rather violent and genuinely sad, focused on adult characters who deal with very adult problems.  It is perhaps doubly ironic that Ruben Fleischer's The Gangster Squad (trailer), which feels at times like a loose remake of the 1990 Disney release, is so juvenile despite its grown-up cast and its very R-rated violence.  It is cheerfully pulpy but childishly so.  It turns the tale of a group of off-the-books LA cops waging war on gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn, going 'full gangster') into a simplistic adventure seemingly aimed at eight-year old boys.  For much of its running time, it can't decide whether it wants to be a serious gangster drama or a kid-friendly action adventure (graphic violence be damned), before just giving up and becoming a glorified video game instead.  Despite all of that, it is not a boring picture, filled with enjoyably bad acting, laughably cliched and/or corny plot turns, and pretty much non-stop violence.  The Gangster Squad achieves a rarity in this hyper-aware age: It's genuinely so bad that it's (almost) good.

The Gangster Squad gets a second silly trailer along with some very Caucasian character posters.

This still looks like a bunch of kids playing dress-up and acting out juvenile cops-and-robbers fantasies.  Think Bugsy Malone remaking LA Confidential.  Maybe it's the weirdly 'let's appeal to the kids!' rap song on the soundtrack.  Maybe's it's Sean Penn acting as badly as he can.  Maybe it's the marketing department trying to sell the idea that we're supposed to *care* about the forbidden romance between Emma Stone (as "the girl", I hope merely as a favor to Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer) and Ryan Gosling.  But this frankly looks rather silly and, R-rating and apparent ultra-violence notwithstanding, like a stereo-typically CW-friendly remake of LA Confidential or Mulholland Falls (yes, I know the latter also starred Nick Nolte).  Anyway, also dropping over the last couple days are a bunch of posters.  The theatrical one-sheet is notible in that it resembles the cover of a low-budget straight-to-VHS gangster movie from the early 1990s.  Not *bad* so much as having a distinct 'B-movie' vibe.  The character posters are more disconcerting.  As you'll see after the jump, we've got nine actors getting billing and just five character posters.  Amusingly, the cast's lone African American castmember, Anthony Mackie, doesn't get his own poster, having to stand at the back of the proverbial bus behind box office dynamo Giovanni Ribisi.  What about Michael Pena?  Hispanics apparently don't get face time at all, as he, along with the very Caucasian Robert Patrick are completely MIA.  Stay classy Warner Bros, stay classy.

Scott Mendelson

Marc Webb will helm Spectacular Spider-Man after all! Thoughts and speculation on his somewhat surprising return.

It's a telling sign of behind-the-scenes tumult when it's actually surprising to hear that the director of a franchise-kick off is indeed returning to helm the sequel.  But after a summer filled with innuendo and rumors, followed by a final product that was clearly cut to ribbons at the last minute, and I am not a little surprised to see Marc Webb signing up for another go at Spider-Man 2.0.  But The Hollywood Reporter uh, reports that Webb will indeed helm The Spectacular Spider-Man, set for release on May 4th, 2014.  Andrew Garfield is back too, which is obviously less of a surprise, but at this point Emma Stone is still negotiating.  Expect Stone to get a massive raise, perhaps higher than Garfield, as her massive charisma and general attractiveness caused audiences and critics worldwide to convince themselves that the paper-thin romantic subplot was some kind of classic genre romance.  Webb is angling for a raise above the $1 million he got last time.  Purely speculating, but I imagine Sony offered him enough money to stick around under what will likely be rigorous studio control so they could save face for at least one more installment.  Losing the director after two installments is par for the course (Batman Forever, Iron Man 3, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, X-Men: The Last Stand, Shrek the Third, Chronicle of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, etc.) but losing the director after one film generally causes raised eyebrows.  In this case it would be an admission of error.

A look at the six-day opening weekend for The Amazing Spider-Man. Has Sony established a new franchise or merely temporarily dodged a bullet?

There are a number of ways to judge the six-day $137 million debut of The Amazing Spider-Man (review).  First of all, in all but the most unlikely of circumstances, a film grossing $140 million in its first six days ($62 million over the traditional Fri-Sun weekend) is a pretty big financial success.  For the record, the film played 44% 3D and 10% IMAX.  The film earned an A- from Cinemascore and played 75% over 12 years old and 25% families with kids under 12.  Of the over-12 audience, it played 54% were male and/or over 25 years old. Of the under-12s, 73% were under 10 years old and 65% were boys. While final figures won't drop until Monday, the six-day weekend puts in between 25 and 30 among the biggest six-day totals.  It's the fourth-biggest Fri-Sun debut of 2012 and the second-biggest of summer.  On the other hand, as far as Spider-Man films go, it's actually pretty weak sauce.  Spider-Man 2 opened on this same holiday weekend back in 2004, earning a then-record $180 million in its first six days (with $88 million over the traditional Fri-Sun weekend, among the top-five opening weekends ever at that time).  The first Spider-Man film (audio commentary) opened in May 2002 to a then-record $114 million Fri-Sun debut, earning $144 million over its first six days of play, three of those days falling in the middle of the school year no less.  As for Spider-Man 3, it also broke the Fri-Sun record back in May 2007 ($151 million) before earning $176 million in its first six days.  So factoring in inflation (Spider-Man - $196m, Spider-Man 2 - $229m - third best six-day of all time, Spider-Man 3 - $202m) and the 3D ticket-price bump, The Amazing Spider-Man sold far fewer tickets than its predecessors over its first six days of release.  Point being, the Sam Raimi trilogy set box office records, while The Amazing Spider-Man merely exists as another relatively large-scale blockbuster amid a sea of preordained blockbusters.

Midnight box office: The Amazing Spider-Man earns $7.5m at 12:01am. Will it fall closer to $112m or $155m by Sunday?

The official numbers are in, and The Amazing Spider-Man is off to a decent if-not amazing start.  The reboot earned $7.5 million in midnight screenings.  $1.2 million of that came from IMAX alone, giving each IMAX theater a $4,000 per-screen average.  For comparison sake, Spider-Man 3 debuted with $10 million worth* of midnight showings five summers ago.  While said threequel debuted on a Friday as opposed to Tuesday, it also was in the middle of the school year and didn't have the benefit of 3D ticket prices and expanded IMAX opportunities.  To be fair, there wasn't nearly as much 'rush out and see it' factor this time around, as it wasn't a sequel to a popular series and didn't have the debut of a fan-favorite villain (Venom, natch).  As it is, $7.5 million is the same midnight number that Iron Man 2 pulled in two years ago on its way to a $128 million Fri-Sun total.  But it's difficult/unfair to compare Fri-Sun openings with extended week openings, so let's look at more relevant stats.

Review: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) is the same, only much much worse.

The Amazing Spider-Man

2012
136 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

It's no secret that I have had major issues with the very idea of quickly rebooting the Spider-Man franchise.  If the film was a smash, I have argued, then studios would basically spend the next few decades merely rebooting the same dozen franchises over and over again.  Well, the Marc Webb-helmed reboot is here, and it fails in fundamental ways despite not being an outright terrible film.  It fails by both not being different enough from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man and not being better than Sam Raimi's Spider-Man.  While it is preferred to view (and review) films in a vacuum, the circumstances in this case not only prevent that but discourage it.  At its core, it is an unofficial loose remake of a prior film being sold as an 'untold story' while the studio attempts to sell used goods as a new product.  It is astonishingly cynical gambit and the idea behind its construction turn what is by-itself a moderately entertaining superhero origin story into something downright insidious.  

Newsflash: Twilight didn't invent the female-driven blockbuster and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man was primarily about romance too...

As expected, the initial wave of mostly positive reviews for The Amazing Spider-Man have partially involved a form of collective amnesia. Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph called the film 'a superhero film for the Twilight generation' and states that Twilight was the first blockbuster to target women and The Amazing Spider-Man is the first superhero targeted at females, a theme that a number of critics have implicitly or explicitly stated in their critiques.  Both of these things are false of course.  Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy was primarily a romantic drama stretched over three films.  The web-slinging action beats and occasional super-villain squabbles were less important than the ongoing love story between Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson.  Kristen Dunst was as much of a main character as Toby Maguire, especially in the somewhat underrated Spider-Man 3, and the romantic arc was the main narrative throughout the blockbuster trilogy.  And as for the second claim, it's like Titanic, Spider-Man, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, and Avatar never happened.  But in an era where no one remembers a damn thing and everyone is too damn lazy to look it up, Marc Webb is now getting the credit for basically inventing a female-skewing superhero film and Twilight is now presumed to be the only reference point for blockbusters that were popular with women.

The Gangster Squad gets an awful trailer, looks like L.A. Confidential performed by and for children.

You'll find few who enjoyed Zombieland more than I did.  I put it on my best-of-2009 list and called it perhaps the best zombie film ever made.  But Ruben Fleischer's third film (following the underwhelming but interesting 30 Minutes Or Less) looks frankly idiotic.  Sean Penn is overacting to the point of obnoxiousness.  Ryan Gosling is once again presented as God's gift to women.  Emma Stone is once again paraded around as a piece of ass.  And the film feels like a rehash of any number of 1940s LA crime pictures.  Anthony "I'd be a big star if I wasn't black" Mackie can't even get billing in the trailer, but his presence is appreciated amid the admittedly terrific cast (Josh Brolin, Nick Nolte, Giovanni Ribisi, Robert Patrick, Michael Pena, etc).  Stone's apparent role as the forbidden fruit highlights a certain sausage fest mentality ('manly men doing manly business while hot women wait on call'), while Mireille Enos's seemingly token appearance highlights the 'TV is better for women than movies' cliche.  On television, Enos is the lead in AMC's The Killing.  In movies, she plays Josh Brolin's wife.  The use of contemporary hip-hop song (Jay-Z's "Oh My God") to sell a 1940s period crime drama reeks of demographic pandering while the trailer sells the film as a slightly more adult-skewing version of the 1991 flop Mobsters (L.A. Confidential for kids?).  I'm all in favor of all-star ensemble films and/or period crime dramas.  But putting aside the 'cool cast' factor, this frankly looks awfully silly.  As of now, Warner Bros. has not given The Gangster Squad a release date, so it's likely that the reception for this trailer will be used as a measuring stick of sorts.  Anyway, as always, we'll see...

Scott Mendelson

The Amazing Spider-Man gets one last trailer. In summer 2012, it clearly suffers from the 'middle-child syndrome'.

This frankly isn't nearly as impressive as the first teaser, mainly because it doesn't add much other than to reveal some pretty big third-act spoilers (including two massive hints about the film's finale).  The interplay between Garfield and Stone is still pretty solid, and it's nice that the film A) has them get together pretty early on and B) apparently has her learn his secret at least by act three (again, why spoil that?).  Dennis Leary barely gets any dialogue this time around, which is good since he seems to be giving the film's worst performance.  The focus this time around is on the official super-villain, The Lizard (Rhys Ifans), with plenty of meaty shots of the green-skinned menace.  The web-slinging action still looks pretty terrific and the film looks visually dynamic (it has a richer and crisper picture than the relatively flat The Avengers).  At its core, the problem with The Amazing Spider-Man at this point in the game is two-fold.  First of all, it still doesn't look different enough from the Sam Raimi trilogy to justify a corporate-mandated reboot.  Second of all, it is sandwiched between what is arguably the 'ultimate comic book movie' (The Avengers) and the 'ultimate comic book film' (The Dark Knight Rises).  In comparison, the Marc Webb picture just seems like a kids' flick in comparison, a young do-gooder not fit to play with the grown-ups in tights.  Anyway, The Amazing Spider-Man opens on July 3rd.  As always, we'll see.

Scott Mendelson

The Amazing Spider-Man gets two new posters, plus a terrible Japanese trailer.

I'm assuming these aren't the last posters, as they don't have any credits at the bottom.  Or are we past the point where full-blown theatrical one-sheets have to list any kind of credits anymore?  Anyway, the art for both of these look pretty solid.  Below the jump is the new Japanese trailer for the film.  In a word, it's awful.  The footage is fine, but it's has a painfully trite bit of voice-over monologuing in the middle and is cut together like a bad fan-edit.  Considering that the Japanese trailers for The Avengers and Brave were the best from their respective marketing campaign, we can only presume that Disney international is better at this than Sony International.  Anyway, I presume we'll get a second domestic trailer for this one attached to The Avengers in about three weeks, followed by screenings starting up after the opening weekend of geek-centric Prometheus (June 8th).  The film opens on July 3rd.  As always, we'll see.

Scott Mendelson

The Amazing Spider-Man gets a stylish, but still familiar trailer.

Taken on its own merits, this is a pretty solid trailer.  The visual effects look decent, there seems to be plenty and varied web-slinging action, and Marc Webb's reboot does possess a different, more real-world look compared to Raimi's cotton-candy New York City.  But the idea that this film is 'darker' because it's visually darker and rains a bit more, for the moment, silly.  For all the bright colors and gee-whiz action, Sam Raimi's initial Spider-Man was an awfully morose and depressing affair, with pretty much every major character (Peter, Mary Jane, Harry, Norman, etc) in a state of mental duress for 90% of the picture.  How gloomy is the picture?  It ends at a funeral... for the villain!  And the idea that this film differs by creating a student/mentor relationship between Peter Parker and Dr. Conners completely ignores the father/son relationship between Peter and Norman Osbourne in Spider-Man and the student/mentor relationship (truncated as it was) between Peter and Dr. Octavius in Spider-Man 2.  

Weekend Box Office (08/28/11): Summer 2011 ends with a Hurricane, kneecapping three new releases (Colombiana. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, Our Idiot Brother) and all holdovers.

It's a tough thing to accurately gauge how well a movie would have done if not for an unforeseen variable, such as in this case a massive hurricane that threatened much of the East Coast of the country and shut down hundreds of movie theaters over the weekend.  As such, it feels a little unfair to pick on movies that didn't open all-that well, since who is to say how they would have performed under normal conditions.  So, for the sake of not kicking people while they are down, this summary will be focused on the positive developments over the weekend.

While it was not number one this weekend, Sony's EuroCorp pick-up Colombiana opened with $10.3 million for a solid second place.  The Luc Besson-produced vehicle would likely have opened between $12-$15 million without the storm issues.  But even that smaller number is worth noting.  Point being, the film confirms the genuine bank-ability of Zoe Saldana, who co-starred in Avatar and Star Trek in 2009 and had supporting roles in The Losers, Takers, and Death at a Funeral in 2010.  Saldana's face was pretty much the entire poster, and the marketing campaign centered entirely around her.  This is among the larger opening weekends that I can recall for a female-led pure action picture (as opposed to sci-fi/horror) that isn't based on a comic book or a video game. Even with the diminished numbers, this is still a larger opening weekend than the far-more high profile Conan the Barbarian, Fright Night, and One Day from last weekend.  Point being, there is indeed a market for action pictures starring minorities and/or women. Maybe the market isn't big enough to support $100 million+ productions, but as long as the budget is reasonable (in this case, $40 million), we damn-sure should be seeing more of this kind of thing.  The film earned an A- from Cinemascore and played 65% over-25 and 57% female.  And yes, it's pretty darn fun and well-crafted, even if the narrative is contrived and the film guts itself for that PG-13.

2011 Summer Movie Review part I: The Moments That Mattered

We'll see if my schedule allows me to do a comprehensive 'end of summer' box office wrap-up, but since summer 2011 doesn't officially end until next weekend, I figure I've got time. For now, here is my annual rundown of the various scenes, performances, moments, and miscues that defined the summer just past. Because sometimes, discussing the 'parts' is more fun than discussing the 'whole'. I'll try to avoid divulging plot twists and the like, but consider this a SPOILER WARNING.

Best Fake-Out: Vin Deisel sacrifices himself for the team at the finale of Fast Five.
Even if you feel silly admitting that you cared about the characters in this fifth and inexplicably terrific entry in the eleven-year long racing action franchise, you cannot deny that the characters cared about each other.  What made the movie pop was the genuine sense of camaraderie and bonding that existed between our main characters, which is one of the benefits of being the fifth film in a long running franchise.  So when Deisel's Dominic Toretto separates himself from the pack during the final chase scene, apparently intent on sacrificing himself to give the rest of his friends (including his pregnant sister Mia and her boyfriend Brian) a chance at freedom and riches, I bought it.  The film had built up a genuine 'series finale' vibe, and it seemed completely appropriate that the franchise would end with Dom, the series's most prominent character, giving his life so that his sister's unborn child wouldn't have to grow up without a father.  When Toretto miraculously survived his one-man cannon-ball run, I rolled my eyes a bit.  It wasn't until a week later that I remembered that this fifth film actually took place BEFORE the third film in the series (Tokyo Drift), at the end of which Vin Deisel made a cameo appearance.  Point being, Dominic Toretto was never in danger.  But the film was so unexpectedly compelling and exciting that I completely forgot what I already knew going in.

One to represent all? How The Help is being punished for a lack of minority-driven films, rather than its own merits as a movie.

I'm not going to get into a point-by-point rundown of why I think many of the criticisms being hurled at The Help are just-plain wrong.  First of all, Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman already did just that, so I'll merely link to his piece.  Second of all, much of the outcry over The Help comes not from what is in the movie itself, but rather what isn't in the film, and (more importantly) what isn't in the marketplace.  It is a clear case of film critics (and social commentators) reviewing not the movie itself, but everything outside the film.  As a stand-alone film, it works as a solid, if not awe-inspiring character piece involving a number of women (black and white) who exist in an employer/employee relationship during the middle of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.  If the picture were one of a dozen films being released by a major studio that centered around African-America actors, its flaws would be less of an issue, merely reasons for calling the film good rather than great.  There may be a dearth of African-American-centered major studio releases.  But it is silly to condemn the one 'shining' example and punish it for the non-existence of other pictures like it.

Weekend Box Office (08/21/11): The Help tops in second weekend, crushes four new releases. Summer of 3D ends with three 3D flops.

As expected, the summer reached its climax this weekend with an ugly pileup, as four new releases failed to achieve anything resembling success, with three of those releases being in 3D and two of them chasing the exact same demographics.  Why oh why did Lionsgate and Disney open Conan the Barbarian and Fright Night on the same weekend?.  With the new releases eating each other alive, The Help snuck into the number one slot during its second weekend.  Dropping just 21% compared to the Fri-Sun portion of its opening weekend, The Help earned $20.4 million and now sits with a twelve-day total of $71.8 million.  This is the very definition of an old-fashioned leggy hit, but in today's front-loaded marketplace, it almost qualifies as a sensation.  $100 million is guaranteed at this point, the question now merely remains how far over/under $150 million it ends up and/or how much the film will factor in the year-end awards races.  Viola Davis is a lock for an Oscar nomination (but will her lead performance get placed in the leading or supporting category) and the film is in a pretty good place for a Best Picture nomination.  It would be a lock under the old 10-nominees system, and said two-year experiment was dismantled partially out of the desire to keep such 'popular entertainments' (IE - well-reviewed films that mainstream audiences actually enjoyed... horrors!) out of the field.

Weekend Box Office (08-14-11): Rise of the Planet of the Apes tops again, The Help sizzles, Final Destination 5, 30 Minutes or Less, and Glee Live! underwhelm.

 It's a little sad when a drop of just under 50% is considered leggy, but here we are.  Rise of the Planet of the Apes dropped 'just' 49% in its second weekend, which was strong enough to once again claim the top spot at the box office.  The well-received franchise reboot earned $27.8 million in weekend two, for a ten-day total of $105 million.  The number puts it well-ahead of movies that opened with similar numbers in summers past, such as I, Robot ($95 million after ten days), X-Men ($99 million), X-Men: First Class ($98 million), GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra ($98 million), and The Incredible Hulk ($97 million).  It is comparatively down from Tim Burton's still-lousy (just watched it again this weekend) Planet of the Apes, which opened with $69 million back in 2001 and ended its tenth day with $123 million.  However, this much-better received and much cheaper variation is falling at a smaller rate, so it has a chance of catching up to the $180 million earned by the Burton re-imagining ten years ago.  The film is doing the usual Fox magic overseas as well, as it has $179.6 million worldwide, which makes this a HUGE win for the $93 million production.

Review: Crazy, Stupid Love is stupid, vapid, insulting, misogynistic, and completely disconnected from human experience. A baker's dozen list of why I hate it:

Stupid, Crazy Love
2011
117 minutes
rated PG-13

Stupid, Crazy Love is a wolf in sheep's clothing.  Despite its pedigreed cast and the directing team of Dan Fogelman and John Requa (the very good I Love You Phillip Morris), Stupid, Crazy Love is written and performed like a sub-par sitcom.  Despite its promise of adult comedy and genuine insight into love, family, and relationships, it comes off as a shockingly moronic and simplistic fable penned by people who apparently have no experience with real relationships.  Every moment of genuine pathos and earned drama is followed or undercut by a ghastly contrivance.  It treats women solely as conquests, either as casual one-off hook-ups or as prizes to be won.  In terms of teaching its audience how how to deal with the people in our lives, it is far more insidious than the Twilight films, since the supernatural romance is hardly subtle about its disconcerting undertones.  Like the loathsome Enchanted, Crazy, Stupid Love hides its regressive and boneheaded notions of love and romance under a guise of progressive maturity and thoughtfulness.  I do not yet know whether it is the worst film of 2011.  But it surely contains more awful moments than any film I've seen this year.

For the good of the industry: Why The Amazing Spider-Man must not be a smash...

What was merely presumed is now official, as IMAX announced that The Amazing Spider-Man would be debuting in IMAX 3D along with its 2D and Digital 3D counterparts on July 3, 2012.  This is no surprise, as Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3 both played in IMAX (the latter opened day-and-date), while the lost Raimi-helmed Spider-Man 4 was announced as an IMAX launch when it was scheduled to open on May 5th of this year.  Of course, the Marc Webb Spider-Man reboot will only have 2.5 weeks in IMAX before Chris Nolan debuts The Dark Knight Rises on July 20th.  I have nothing against anyone involved with the making of The Amazing Spider-Man.  I liked Marc Webb's (500) Days of Summer, I think Emma Stone deserved an Oscar nomination for Easy A, and Andrew Garfield has shined in (among his more mainstream films) Never Let Me Go and The Social Network.  And while the teaser trailer failed to make any real impression beyond autopilot 'dark and gritty' brooding, I've been told the footage at Comic Con was more impressive.  But for the good of the industry as a whole, for the sake of the countless untapped sources of big-budget cinematic experiences, The Amazing Spider-Man must bomb.