Since George Lucas finished up the quintessential trilogy in 1983 (no, not Star Wars, I'm talking about The Ewok Adventure), milking a series for all its worth has been the apple of the film industry's eye. Lucas's followed up his first trilogy with another: The Indiana Jones Series. Next, Back to the Future satiated our tri-movie lust. Then the whole movie series thing hit kind of a hangover as the 90s rolled in.

The first Police Academy movie entered in 1984, and it brought with it the dark age of trilogies (There were 6 Police Academy movies and 3 others that were probably in the works. This makes the Police Academy series at least two, and maybe 3 trilogies long and the most unholy spawn of satan ever to grace cellulose.) While Police Academy was showing us how badly a bunch of white people could screw up a trilogy, Kid N Play was showing us that black people could make equally crappy films with the House Party series. Let's take a look...

Like that? Well, don't bother buying or renting the movie, that's literally the most entertaining part of the whole series. Any dialogue that you hear from the movie will only serve to lower your IQ.

The bright spot during the dark ages came in the form of the Die Hard trilogy. All three of which are extremely watchable. Because I don't count Major League as a series because this doesn't exist, the next start of a major movie series came in 1999 with The Matrix, which was a lesson in series suicide. The two sequels to the Matrix, while entertaining, have almost no re-watchability. Hence, the series committed suicide, and I'll probably never watch the first one again.

The same year the Matrix came out, George Lucas decided he wanted another crack at the trilogy game and released Star Wars: The Phantom Menace which, despite having the best light saber battle and most badass character of the series, was the beginning of a completely inferior trilogy to the original. But, as luck would have it, 2001 would see the release of the first movie in the greatest cinematic accomplishment of our time, The Lord of the Rings. I sincerely doubt there's a better, successive 10 hours of film to watch.

But of course, I may be forgetting one of the most watchable series in the history of film sequels, and that is, of course, the Rocky movies. With 3 Oscars under its belt, another 7 nominations, and 500 Trillion dollars grossed at the box office, Rocky is truly an titan of the trilogy (two trilogies, in fact!). It is better even than Sly's other series, Rambo. Let's watch...

So, after 30 years of movie series, May holds the month of the release of the third part of the two most successful series in the history of box office receipts: Spider-Man and Pirates of the Caribbean.

The history of the two trilogies is, now, very much intertwined. You might say they are an extension of the Pirates vs. Ninjas debate with Spider-Man in his tight, form fitting costume and acrobatic abilities.

Spider-Man was released in 2002. In grossing $114 million its opening weekend, it became the biggest opening weekend success in movie history. The following summer in 2003, the Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was released. It grossed a respectable $46 million its opening weekend, but quickly developed legs with a super-cult following. Pirates ended up grossing $305 million to the first Spider-Man's $403 million.

In 2004, the second in the Spider-Man series was released. It's opening weekend was less successful in grossing $88 million for its first Friday-Sunday run. Spider-Man 2 ended up grossing $373 million at the box office. Finally, in 2006, Disney finally released the second installment of the Pirates franchise. Shocking everyone (including yours truly) Dead Man's Chest grossed $135 million its opening weekend and brought in $423 million overall.

Now, the entire reason for spouting off both of these numbers for each series attests to the "legs" of the movies, or how well they do after their opening weekend. For example, Spider-Man's opening weekend accounted for 28.3% of its total box office gross, while Pirates I brought in 15% of the total its first weekend. In this instance, we could say that the original Pirates had a more complete box office run than the original Spider-Man because it inspired audiences to keep returning.

To make this analysis a little more intriguing, we should subtract the previous calculations from 100. Thus, Pirates I would be 85% and Spider-Man 71.7%. The formula is simply the 100 - (Opening Weekend Gross / Total Gross). I like to call it the BOLI or Box Office Legs Index.

By the same logic, the BOLI for Spider-Man 2 would be 76.4% - a marked increase from the much hyped Spider-Man. The BOLI for Pirates II calculates out to 68.1%. By this logic, Spider-Man 2 had more legs than Pirates II.

Spider-Man 3 was released at the beginning of May to much pomp and ballyhoo. It grossed $151 million its first weekend, easily out-pacing Pirates II's previous record of $135 million. And now the fun begins!

After seeing Spider-Man 3, I can tell you for certain it was easily the worst of the series. I would expect it to gross not more than $400 million dollars because it's box office numbers are going to fall off terribly from pour word of mouth.

But, enough math! This month is truly a clash of box office titans! Let's recap: Spider-Man grossed $114 million its opening weekend and secured the best opening weekend ever. Pirates II beat that with a showing of $135 million. Less than 1 year later, Spider-Man 3 was released and shattered that record by $16 million in selling $151 million in tickets.

It seems that we've got quite a duel on our hands. We need to break this down. Let's go to...

The Tale of the Tape

There you have it! Thus far, Pirates is the better series. At this point, it would be pretty hard to lose the lead because the Spider-Man movies have gotten successively worse, and the Pirates movies have stayed on an even keel (excuse the pun). At World's End would have to be a shipwreck not to keep the trend going (excuse the pun).

The third Pirates movie comes out on May 25th. We'll see if it can beat Spidey at the box office. In the mean time, use this to tide you over (don't excuse that pun).

Tschüs!