November 1 marked the 23rd anniversary of the DVD release of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. To celebrate this (very) belated birthday, let's travel back to a fascinating piece of history regarding the movie's finances. It's hard to overestimate just how much Spider-Man contributed to what we know as the superhero genre today. The film was a phenomenon, and Sony spent on it as such, including for its home video release.
Reddit user u/JannTosh70 on the r/boxoffice subreddit unearthed a Variety article from July 14, 2002, "Spidey to get record push." The trade revealed Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment (renamed Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in 2004) had pretty big expectations for the November 1 DVD release of the film, which had come out theatrically two months prior, reaching $400 million domestically. This led the studio to spend over $100 million on promoting its home video release.
Per the outlet, the DVD release would carry over partnerships that began during the movie's theatrical release, with some of the companies involved being Carl's Jr. and Dr. Pepper. Media buys and promotions alone increased the value of the campaign by $45 million, leading it to total over $100 million. This, in turn, made it Sony's biggest marketing campaign of all time (at that point).
The studio was sure Spidey would take the title of best-selling DVD in Hollywood from Sony's Men in Black (released September 5, 2000), which had sold between 15 to 16 million copies at the time. Sony also hoped Spidey would surpass The Lion King as the all-time home rental of that era, which would have meant almost doubling Men in Black's numbers. According to the trade, Sony gave Spidey a rare Friday release date, hoping to take advantage of the Halloween weekend and pre-Thanksgiving weekend sales.
Funnily enough, Spider-Man was also expected to have competition from Sony's other 2002 releases, such as Stuart Little 2, Men in Black II, and Mr. Deeds (a near masterpiece, by the way). Outside of the studio's offerings, the Web-Slinger also competed against other heavy-hitters like Attack of the Clones, Monsters, Inc. and The Fellowship of the Ring.
So, what happened once the Spider-Man DVD hit store shelves? Well, it didn't disappoint. According to BBC, a mere three days after its release, Spider-Man had sold more than 11 million DVD and VHS copies in the United States and Canda, a number that amounted to $190 million in sales. To put those numbers into perspective, the home media release made more in its first three days than the film's opening weekend of approximately $114 million. Just on its first day, the movie sold seven million copies, breaking the one-day-sales record previously held by Monsters, Inc. by 2 million.
Sony's bold release strategy ended up paying off, as BBC stated sales for the film were boosted by Halloween promotions and subsequent discounts.
Then, in December 2002, Variety published a report on the top DVD sellers of 2002. Spider-Man ranked #2, right below The Lord of the Rings, having sold 12 million DVD units alone (a.k.a., not including VHS copies), bringing in a revenue of $215.3 million for Sony. Notably, the film did end up beating all of its Sony competition.
So, there you have it: A fascinating piece of Spidey history. It's interesting to see how pivotal physical home video sales were for the success of a blockbuster and contrast it to modern times, when physical media is slowly fading away, and digital is taking over.
Where you one of the people who bought the film on home video when it came out? Drop your thoughts in the comments!