If you don’t have anything too pressing to do today, you may want to swing over to your local movie theater.

One of Marvel Comics’ most recognizable characters has landed on the silver screen. Go to your cave Batman, hang up your cape Superman, thanks for testing the water X-Men – Spider-Man is ready for action.

After ten years in the making, the world renowned “Wall-Crawler” has dusted off his Spandex, tweaked his look and is ready to make the transition from pulp to celluloid. Not too bad for an orphan teenager who lives with his elderly aunt.

“My assistant manager saw a preview screening of the movie [Wednesday],” said Robert Josephson, co-owner of Mayhem Collectibles. “I usually take everything he tells me about movies with a grain of salt, but this time I think we’ll agree. He said I won’t be disappointed.”

According to Sony Pictures, the movie, which was released in conjunction with the character’s 40th anniversary, is expected to have a strong opening against its summer competition in “Star Wars: Episode II” and “Men in Black II.”

Assistant Manager of Movies 12, Jeff Klopfenstein said the theater has had advanced sales for the movie since Monday and there are still plenty of seats available on opening night.

“There have been quite a few people getting ready for the film by getting a jump on the lines and buying their tickets early,” he said. “But not many people realize we have advanced sales.”

Josephson says the new Spider-Man feature film should live up to its box-office hype and hang with its competition without a problem.

“The casting was brilliant, you have Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin, Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson and to cap it all off they got Tobey Maguire in the lead. I mean, he is Peter Parker,” he said. “And thank God they stuck to the original costume. I think Sam Raimi is an excellent choice to be heading up the project too; he’s a huge Spider-Man fan from his childhood and will stay true to the character.”

Although he touts Maguire as the perfect Peter, Josephson said if the movie had been made ten years ago, he would have cast John Cusack in the lead.

But luckily, the movie did take ten years to reach completion and the technology to make the acrobatic crime fighter come to life was at hand.

“Spider-Man is a physical character, he has to do – and people expect him to do – what he does in the comic,” Josephson said. “The CGI in the film makes that possible and is supposed to blow every one away, it should be one hell of a movie.”

Along with the special effects, Josephson says the timing for “Spider-Man” will also help with its predicted success.

“`Superman’ was released in ’78, right after “Star Wars” and people just weren’t ready for a comic book-based movie.”

Although he says he’s not a huge fan of the “Batman” franchise, Josephson agreed the movies began the new shift towards comic-based films. And with the recent success of the X-Men feature film, Spider-Man was the next logical step.

“I think that’s why you’re seeing all of the movie tie-ins with Spider-Man now,” Josephson said. “The studio was unsure of the success of the X-Men, so they were cautious. With Spider-Man, he’s Marvel’s logo character so they’re confident to put all their cards on the table.”