Sony Spent An Obscene Amount Of Money Marketing Spider-Man's DVD Release

Studios spending egregious amounts on their films isn't exactly a new practice. But typically those amounts pertain to a movie's production budget. When Sony spent more than $100 million to market the home video release of 2002's "Spider-Man," however, it was an unprecedented move that luckily seems to have paid off — though not exactly in the way Sony hoped.

Before the Marvel Cinematic Universe took over the world (then fell from grace), Sam Raimi delivered two of the greatest Marvel superhero movies ever made. It began with 2002's "Spider-Man," the most significant comic book release since Warner Bros.' Batman movies ran out of steam with 1997's colossal bomb "Batman & Robin." Sure, we'd had the enduringly great "Blade" and the X-Men had been given the cinematic treatment. But "Spider-Man" felt like the true successor to Richard Donner's "Superman" and Tim Burton's "Batman" in that it gave an already iconic hero a reverent and truly worthy big screen adaptation.

Fans seemed to agree. The movie made $804 million at the worldwide box office on a $140 million budget, which even without taking inflation into account is a figure Marvel Studios would kill to hit these days. It became the highest-grossing superhero movie of all time in 2002, and even managed to secure a couple of Academy Awards nominations. What's more, critics were impressed and praised Raimi for delivering blockbuster thrills while managing to retain much of the heart and humanity that makes a good Spider-Man story work. So, it's not hard to see why Sony was so confident going into the film's home video release. Even with that in mind, however, the company spent an insane amount on promoting that release.

Fans eager to revisit Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" at home were able to do so after Sony finally released the movie on VHS and DVD in November 2002. It arrived amid nothing short of a marketing blitz. These days, we're used to seeing studios green-light irresponsible budgets that end up knee-capping their movies in the long run. Back in 2002, such a thing wasn't quite as widespread but there must have been a few raised eyebrows when, as Variety reported at the time, Sony spent more than $100 million to promote the home video release of "Spider-Man." That's an eighth of the film's overall box office take, but considering studios typically only get about half of what their movies make in theaters, $100 million was more like a quarter of the entire "Spider-Man" profit at that point. Thankfully, the move paid off, although not quite as spectacularly as Sony might have hoped.

According to Variety, the studio was looking to dethrone home video top-seller, "The Lion King" and gave "Spider-Man" a rare Friday release date in order to take advantage of Halloween night fervor and pre-Thanksgiving spending. The studio racked up its marketing spend via partnerships with multiple companies including Cingular, Dr. Pepper and Carl's Jr./Hardees, which alongside other deals pushed the value of the promotional spend past that $100 million mark. Sony also packed the "Spider-Man" DVD with special features (remember the days before the worst trend in home media began?) in order to entice buyers, spreading the expansive media across two discs. All of which seemed to work well, though it wasn't quite enough to outdo Simba.

Things started out very well for the home video release of "Spider-Man." The movie brought in $190 million in its first week alone, breaking first day sales records by shifting seven million units of combined VHS and DVDs. By the end of the weekend, Sam Raimi's blockbuster had sold more than 11 million units, adding to Sony's confidence that it would become the highest-selling home release ever.

Unfortunately, it fell short of that goal. "Spider-Man" finished the year as the number two top-selling DVD of 2002. According to Variety, the film sold 12.2 million units for a total of $215.3 million, which put it just behind "The Lord of the Rings" and its $257.3 take. It failed to make any ground in the years since. "Spider-Man" currently sits at #10 on the all time list of DVD sales, having sold 19.5 million units and bringing in $565 million. It also sits at number 10 on the overall home video list, which compiles DVD, VHS, and Blu-ray sales. Altogether, "Spider-Man" sold 26 million units for a total of $727 million, making that initial $100 million spend more than worth it.

Still, that overall list is dominated by "The Lion King" to this day, with a combined total of 48.5 million units sold. All of which means that Sony never reached its goal to dethrone Disney in the home media market, and was even outdone in its first year by Peter Jackson and New Line with the "Lord of the Rings" sales. Regardless, "Spider-Man" remains one of the biggest home video releases of all time and one of the best and most influential superhero movies ever made.