Spider-Man: No Way Home Crosses $1 Billion At The Box Office In Just 12 Days
Spider-Man is having himself a downright amazing, spectacular year at the box office. "Spider-Man: No Way Home," after less than two weeks, has managed to cross the $1 billion mark at the global box office. This is incredible even by pre-pandemic standards. Now? It's genuinely stunning, even if we all assumed this movie was going to be a huge hit, which many of us did. But it would have been downright foolish to assume it would have performed this well, as this is the kind of hit many felt had gone extinct given how much the moviegoing landscape has changed over the last couple of years.
Per Box Office Mojo, Sony and Marvel Studios' "Spider-Man: No Way Home" now sits at $1.05 billion at the global box office. That includes its record-shattering opening weekend, along with its more recent $81.5 million second weekend. Domestically, it has amassed $467.3 million, to go along with $587.1 million from international markets. That adds up to make it the first movie to join the $1 billion club since "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" did it in 2019. Though that movie didn't actually cross the landmark until early 2020, even though it was released in December 2019.
Director Jon Watts' third solo "Spider-Man" flick is on track to top 2019's "Far From Home" ($1.13 billion) and will ultimately become Sony's highest-grossing movie of all time. That honor did belong to "Skyfall" ($1.1 billion) until "Far From Home" swooped in. Just how high can "No Way Home" fly? That is a great question, especially considering that it hasn't even opened in China yet. $1.5 billion is not out of the realm of possibility.
The Good and the Bad
The great news is that people are going out to theaters, despite Omicron concerns, in ways we haven't seen in literally years. The pandemic reshaped consumer habits in a dramatic way, which has impacted near-countless movies at this point. Superheroes and horror flicks have done well, everything else is a gamble. To that end, movies like "West Side Story," "Nightmare Alley," and more recently "A Journal for Jordan" have all flopped at the box office, despite earning very solid reviews.
I, for one, am choosing to look at the glass half full here and feel that it's good for movie theaters, and it's good that, under the right circumstances, people are still willing to fill up movie theaters to this level. Theaters are not dead and they don't have to die. The industry may just have to continue to adapt, and 2022 can be a year of tweaking and (hopefully) further recovery. With any luck, we can have this all much more contained by 2023, and the new normal can emerge where other movies have a chance to earn their seat at the table as well. For now, Sony and Marvel should be thrilled.
As for the why of it all? Spider-Man remains the most popular superhero on the planet (sorry, Batman) and the MCU brand is insanely strong. Doctor Strange was in it, villains from other iterations of the wildly popular franchise were in it. All of this added up to make it feel like a true event film, the likes of which we haven't truly seen since "The Rise of Skywalker." Plus, word of mouth has been insanely good, which never hurts.
"Spider-Man: No Way Home" is in theaters now.