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.
The Amazing Spider-Man
"The Amazing Spider-Man" has been the character's flagship series for his first fifty years in publication, and was the only monthly series to star Spider-Man until "Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man" in 1976, although 1972 saw the debut of "Marvel Team-Up", with the vast majority of issues featuring Spider-Man along with a rotating cast of other Marvel characters. Most of the major characters and villains of the Spider-Man saga have been introduced in "Amazing", and with few exceptions, it is where most key events in the character's history have occurred. The title was published continuously until #441 (Nov. 1998) when Marvel Comics relaunched it as vol. 2 #1 (Jan. 1999), but on Spider-Man's 40th anniversary, this new title reverted to using the numbering of the original series, beginning again with issue #500 (Dec. 2003) and lasting until the final issue, #700 (Feb. 2013).
Due to strong sales on the character's first appearance in "Amazing Fantasy" #15, Spider-Man was given his own ongoing series in March 1963. The initial years of the series, under Lee and Ditko, chronicled Spider-Man's nascent career with his civilian life as hard-luck yet perpetually good-humored teenager Peter Parker. Peter balanced his career as Spider-Man with his job as a freelance photographer for "The Daily Bugle" under the bombastic editor-publisher J. Jonah Jameson to support himself and his frail Aunt May. At the same time, Peter dealt with public hostility towards Spider-Man and the antagonism of his classmates Flash Thompson and Liz Allan at Midtown High School, while embarking on a tentative, ill-fated romance with Jameson's secretary, Betty Brant.