It's pure coicidence though. There was no way you could anticipate that a crazy psyco would shoot the crowd. Barring any more mass murders, this film is headed for a weekend well north of 35M.
Doesn't matter. Chinese market was virtually non-existent before 2007 (for foreign films at least). Very few people in China saw Begins and B&R, so for most of them this will be the first Batman film.
Russia and China are two very different markets. The only thing they have in common is the rate of growth. That's it. And TDKR can still beat Spidey's total. Remember it had 70% second weekend drop.
I doubt that being a family flick is going to help Spidey's fortunes in China. You can take kids to Batman too. Most people will have to make a choice, and at the end of the day TASM is simply not appealing enough. TDKR is the first Batman movie ever to be released in China, from the director of Inception no less. TASM is kinda just there, there's no must-see factor to it.
TDKR will destroy TASM in direct competition, it will completely crush it.Spydey will become "LORAX" to Batman's "IA4".Thinking about 90M and 40M respectively.
At the end of the day Spidey will be very close to MIB3 in terms of profitability. I don't see Sony rushing forward with MIB sequel, but they seem desperate to turn TASM into trilogy. I bet they think Spidey sequels will increase...They are wrong.The fact that TASM failed to increase from SM3 internationally clearly shows that this franchise is on a downward slope, not just domestically, but OS as well.
Look, it's not my problem that you don't have a clue about international box office. Finishing well below SM3 internationally, despite 5 years of inflation, market expansion and 3D, is not impressive at all.