10 Biggest Superhero Movie Opening Weekends Of All Time

10. Spider-Man

Release date: May 3, 2002

Opening weekend total: $114.8 million

A true trailblazer, the first Tobey Maguire Spider-Man is the oldest movie on this list. The wall-crawler is also likely to be knocked off of it very soon, probably as soon as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice comes out, so let’s give him his props while we can.

It might not seem that way in retrospect, but the original Spider-Man was a bit of a risky venture. The rights to a Spider-Man film had been tied up in studio red tape for quite a bit, and no other studios were cranking out superhero movies at the time. Fans weren’t sold on Maguire as Peter Parker or the fact that Spidey would have organic web-shooters, and director Sam Raimi, though a cult favorite, was seen as an unusual choice to helm a big budget superhero flick by the general public.

Fortunately, the movie was just fine, and Spider-Man is such a popular character that moviegoers turned out in droves. Interestingly, the sequel did worse when it opened despite an even better villain in Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock, but the best opening weekend in this series was still to come.

Next: 9. Man of Steel