Strategic smarts employed by Sony's studio locked some of the bigger theaters for Spiderman cutting into AOTC's box office tally. From showbizdata.com:

The gross for 20th Century Fox's Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones could have been higher had it not been for a strategic move made by Sony's Columbia Pictures when it locked up theater screens for Spider-Man, the Wall Street Journal reported today (Monday). According to the newspaper, the studio demanded the largest-capacity theaters at megaplexes through the Memorial Day weekend as a condition of its deals with exhibitors. That forced competitors to place their films into theaters with fewer seats, the Journal observed.

The success of the film came despite a foredoomed attack by the majority of U.S. major-market newspaper and weekly magazine critics, leading today's Daily Variety to comment, "Boffo perf proves once again that the franchise is critic-proof." Jim Gianopulos, co-chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment, told today's New York Times that the movie was "impervious" to the critical attacks. The New York Observer's Rex Reed joined the fray in today's edition, writing that the film "is as exciting as a rancid Yoo-Hoo. ... But that won't stop this feeble blaze of clanking puppets and flying Frisbees from lining Mr. Lucas' pockets with enough revenue to rebuild the World Trade Center."