Marvel Studios
The next film licensed from Marvel Studios was "Spider-Man" by Columbia Pictures, directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man. The film was released on May 3, 2002, grossing $403,706,375 in the United States and Canada and $821,708,551 worldwide. The early success of "Spider-Man" led the film's studio to issue a seven-figure advance for a sequel. Arad spoke of the deal, "Movies make sequels. Therefore, it's a big economic luxury to know that a movie's going to get a second and third. This is a business of precedence." According to a Lehman Brothers analysis, the Studios made only $62 million for the first 2 Spider-Man movies. Marvel was making more from half the consumer product licensing fees while making relatively little from the movie, but was enough for Marvel to regain its financial footings. In October 2002, Marvel Studios announced deals for Sub-Mariner and Prime with Universal Studios.
Spider-Man
When primary series "The Amazing Spider-Man" reached issue #545 (December 2007), Marvel dropped its spin-off ongoing series and instead began publishing "The Amazing Spider-Man" three times monthly, beginning with #546–548 (all January 2008). The three times monthly scheduling of "The Amazing Spider-Man" lasted until November 2010 when the comic book was increased from 22 pages to 30 pages each issue and published only twice a month, beginning with #648–649 (both November 2010). The following year, Marvel launched "Avenging Spider-Man" as the first spinoff ongoing series in addition to the still twice monthly "The Amazing Spider-Man" since the previous ones were cancelled at the end of 2007. The "Amazing" series temporarily ended with issue #700 in December 2012, and was replaced by "The Superior Spider-Man", which had Doctor Octopus serve as the new Spider-Man, having taken over Peter Parker's body. "Superior" was an enormous commercial success for Marvel, and ran for 31-issue before the real Peter Parker returned in a newly relaunched "The Amazing Spider-Man" #1 in April 2014.