Cable's FX traps latest "Spidey"

By Nellie Andreeva

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter)- "Spider-Man 3" followed its record-breaking opening weekend with a rich TV deal.

In healthy bidding, FX has nabbed the rights to the film from distributor Columbia Pictures' sibling studio, Sony Pictures Television.

Observers say the price tag is tied to the movie's final domestic box office tally and could reach $40 million. The film earned a record $151 million during its first weekend at the North American box office.

Representatives for FX, which also owns the rights to "Spider-Man 2," and Sony TV declined comment on the deal Tuesday.

The five-year deal on "Spider-Man 3" is slated to begin in December 2009, following the film's pay window on Starz.

Sony TV has the option to carve out three windows during the length of the deal with FX for airings on broadcast networks. The studio is expected to take the film to the broadcast networks after it wraps its "upfront" presentations to advertisers next week.

With additional broadcast runs and a syndication window that would follow "Spider-Man 3's" second cycle on pay cable, the sequel's total TV revenue is expected to be in line with the $60 million-plus fetched by the previous two "Spider-Man" movies.

In 2004, "Spider-Man 2" was sold to Fox Broadcasting Co. and FX in a deal that was valued at about $50 million, with the possibility for extra broadcast/cable windows pegged at about $10 million.

Fox also has the rights to the first "Spider-Man" through a 10-year $60 million-plus deal shared with Turner Broadcasting's TNT and TBS.

Going aggressively after "Spider-Man 3" fits into FX's strategy to acquire big, broad feature films. For the past several years, the network brass have opted to add blockbuster movies to its schedule instead of reruns of popular crime procedural dramas -- a once-hot cable commodity that has cooled off.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter