Displaying the kind of gravity-defying antics one would expect from Spider-Man, Columbia's smash hit held on to top spot with a weekend gross of $72m, racing past $200m on Saturday in a record nine days. This weekend's $72m haul - the highest second-weekend gross ever - is the fourth highest weekend gross of all time behind Spider-Man's $114m bow last weekend, Harry Potter's $90.3m and the $72.1m taken by The Lost World: Jurassic Park.

Sam Raimi's Marvel Comics adaptation starring Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst has taken $223.6m in its first ten days, according to studio estimates released today. Previously Star Wars: Episode I ' The Phantom Menace was the record-holder with 13 days.

Spider-Man dipped 37% at the box office this weekend, an impressively low figure considering a blockbuster's revenue typically declines by 50% in its second weekend.

Fox's adult thriller Unfaithful opened in second place across 2,613 sites with $14.2m. Richard Gere and Diane Lane star as a couple who must reconcile themselves to the bloody consequences of an affair. The film is directed by Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction, Lolita) and is a remake of Claude Chabrol's 1969 French classic La Femme Infidele. Fox will be expecting the movie to play steadily for several weeks among the mature adult audience.

Opening in third with $9.5m was The New Guy, Columbia's rites-of-passage comedy starring D J Qualls (Cherry Falls) as a youngster who reinvents himself in a bid to become popular at high school.

The Scorpion King dropped to fourth place with $4.4m. The swords and sorcery actioner has now grossed $80.4m for Universal. Paramount's Changing Lanes clung on to mid-table respectability, dropping two places to fifth. The picture took $3.5m and now has a running total of $57m. Total revenue for the top 12 films dropped 25% from last weekend but the figure is up 60% from the same period last year, when The Mummy Returns topped the charts.

Spider-Man has now become the year's highest grossing title, overtaking the $170.8m accumulated by Warner's Ice Age over two months. While Columbia chiefs do not foresee the arachnid out-performing Star Wars: Episode II - Attack Of The Clones when the latter opens on Thursday they do expect it to secure second place. In a throwaway teaser last week George Lucas said his picture would not break the opening record as it was only scheduled to open on 6,000 screens, 1,500 fewer than Spider-Man.

Next weekend's other new releases include Hugh Grant with a new haircut in Universal's romantic comedy About A Boy, which enjoyed a successful opening in the UK recently; IDP Distribution's The Believer, an account of a Jewish Neo-Nazi starring Ryan Gosling; and Miramax's Importance Of Being Earnest, which is directed by Oliver Parker and stars Rupert Everett, Judi Dench, Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon.

ESTIMATED TOP TEN US MAY 10-12
Film (Distributor)/International distribution/Estimated weekend gross/Estimated total to date

1 (1) Spider-Man (Columbia) Columbia TriStar $72m $223m
2 (-) Unfaithful (20th Century Fox) Fox International $14.2m --
3 (-) The New Guy (Columbia) Columbia TriStar $9.5m -
4 (2) The Scorpion King (Universal) $4.4m $80.4m
5 (3) Changing Lanes (Paramount) UIP/Mutual $3.5m $57m
6 (4) Murder by Numbers (Warner Brothers) $2.3m $n/a
7 (5) The Rookie (Buena Vista) BVI $2.1m $n/a
8 (10) Panic Room (Columbia) Columbia TriStar $1.5m $n/a
9 (8) Ice Age (20th Century Fox) Fox International $1.4m $170.8m
10 (6) Life or Something Like It $1.3m $n/a