Spider-Man 2 Breaks Wednesday Box Office Record

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Plus, Alfred (Doc Ock) Molina says Make Mine Marvel.

Spider-Man 2 broke the box office record for a Wednesday opening with $38.6 million from 4,152 theaters, according to Box Office Mojo. The previous record of $34.5 million was held by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Meanwhile, Alfred Molina, Dr. Octopus in Spider-Man 2, says there’s a on-set gag that might make it onto the DVD concerning his character and a Broadway musical role he’s recently taken on.

"It was the end of a very long day and we were doing a shot of Doc Ock coming up from a gurney, just rising up. I think on the last take I just went into the first four bars of 'If I Was a Rich Man,'" Molina said. His tentacle arms danced along.

Molina told CNN he nicknamed Doc Ock’s extra limbs Harry, Larry, Flo and Moe.

Harry and Larry were the lower extremities, which held him in place during feats of strength -- like hurling cars through coffee shop windows. "They were bigger and heavier," Molina told CNN.

"The two upper ones were slightly smaller, still very powerful. But Flo, on this side," he said, gesturing to his right shoulder, "had all the delicate intricate stuff to do," like removing his characters glasses and lighting a cigar.

When the arms aren’t computer-generated, they are real props manipulated by 16 puppeteers, four for each arm.

Also, Molina says he prefers Marvel comics to DC. "We got all the American comics," the 51-year-old Londoner told the Houston Chronicle, "and I much preferred Marvel's over DC's, whose characters I found incredibly moral and dull. But I wasn't a big collector, and when I went to college I gave them all away."

But he didn’t like Doc Ock’s early comic appearances. "He looked like a '50s wrestler gone to seed, with a strange bowl haircut."

Molina talked about how in the comics, the villain wooed Peter Parker’s Aunt May. "He's almost one of the family, later on," Molina said. "At least, he tries to be. But he keeps getting destroyed and coming back. That's the great thing about villains in the comics universe: They never die."

Also, "his powers do kind of match Spider-Man's, in terms of strength and versatility," Molina said. "The irony is that, with the tentacles, he's almost as spidery as Spider-Man. I'm sure that wasn't an accidental thing, but probably a subversion of the artists."

And Doc Ock, like Spidey, has inner conflict: "That's the interesting thing about Marvel characters, both villains and heroes," Molina said. "They're all rather reluctant. I think that helped (director) Sam Raimi to push a little bit and extend the story's possibilities."

Finally, a teen was arrested early Wednesday at a California theater for allegedly trying to make a pirate copy of a Spider-Man 2 screening, according to CNN.

Bob Gough
7/1/2004
Source: CNN

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