Being otherwise engaged during the last Los Angeles invitational screening of The Amazing Spider-Man the night before last and too busy (i.e., too lazy) to have seen it yesterday on my own dime, I’ll defer to Rope of Silicon‘s Brad Brevet on the $35 million opening day:

“Forget the fact that I don’t think The Amazing Spider-Man is very good” — 71% Rotten Tomatoes, 66% Metacritic — “and forget the fact it’s showing in 3-D and on IMAX screens, which means it’s bringing in more money than had it been playing on a level, 2-D playing field. The fact it made $35 million on its opening day, which includes $7.5 million from midnight screenings, is just mind-boggling to me.

“Where’s the demand? Where is the desire to see this movie right away?

“It’s only been five years since the last Spider-Man film and, for the most part, Spider-Man 3 was generally considered awful. And now people are lining up to spend an untold amount of money to see it all start over again as the webslinger battles a giant lizard? Sorry, I just don’t get it.

“Of the $35 million, $4 million was generated from 3-D IMAX screenings and this total now surpasses the previous, $27.8 million Tuesday opening day record held by 2007’s Transformers.”