Why would Spider-Man get a reboot — this time, with Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker — only five years after the Tobey Maguire–led franchise churned out its last installment? Because of $$$$$. THR is reporting that the new Spidey movie, The Amazing Spider-Man, is tracking extremely well with all kinds of audience demographics, “suggesting a six-day opening of $125 million or more, the best showing of any summer film outside of box office goliath The Avengers.” Well then!

It’s a tad surprising, from where I’m sitting, that this new flick would do as well. I know that the Sam Raimi–directed Maguire run was huge (THR again: “All three movies set their own box office records, with Spider-Man 3 opening to $151.1 million over the May 4-6 weekend in 2007, then the biggest three-day debut of all time), but I thought that’d be a factor against the reboot succeeding. You’d think the “old” Spidey movies being so popular, and so readily available, and the new Spidey movie (at least from the look of the trailers) being not so vastly different in tone, would have limited the audience turnout. Well, nope. Not at all. You could prognosticate that the audience will skew preteen, and therefore be made up of kids actually too young for the Maguire run, but certainly part of the lesson here is that one can’t underestimate the timeless appeal of Spider-Man himself. When this new franchise runs out, they may only wait, like, three months before hiring all new good-looking young people and doing it all over again. Also, some credit should probably be paid to Garfield and his co-star/real-life love interest Emma Stone. Yeah, they have the brand name behind them. But if they’re able to pack ’em into the theaters like this, maybe Andrew and Emma’s movie star drawing power should be respected as such. And look, if Andrew Garfield’s surprising Spider-Man success means even the slightest chance of an eventual Eduardo Saverin–Social Network spinoff, I’m onboard.