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‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Officially Opens to $260 Million, Second-Biggest Box Office Debut in History

Rebecca Rubin
·3-min read

“Spider-Man: No Way Home” has generated even more money in its box office debut than initially reported.

Sony’s epic finale in the Tom Holland-led comic book trilogy collected a mind-blowing $260 million in North American theaters over the weekend, above Sunday’s estimates of $253 million. It means “No Way Home” has now surpassed “Avengers: Infinity War” ($257 million) to land the second-biggest debut in Hollywood history behind only “Avengers: Endgame” ($357 million). Not bad for pandemic times.

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Internationally, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” captured $340.8 million from 60 overseas markets, pushing its global tally to $600.8 million. It stands as the third-biggest worldwide launch ever after “Avengers: Endgame” ($1.2 billion) and “Avengers: Infinity War” ($640 million).

Naturally, the newest Marvel adventure has obliterated COVID-era box office benchmarks. Prior to this weekend, no movie had been able to cross $100 million in a single weekend. The best attempt had been another Sony’s comic book sequel, “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” which generated $90 million to start. Given those constraints and the pandemic-related headwinds still facing the box office, industry watchers struggled to ballpark opening weekend figures for “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” Concerns over the rapidly spreading Omicron variant of COVID-19 did little to stifle box office revenues.

Pent-up demand to witness Marvel’s friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, along with key adversaries in Doc Ock (Alfred Molina), Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) and Electro (Jamie Foxx), pushed the Jon Watts-directed “No Way Home” to stratospheric heights. Superhero enthusiasts wanted to be first in line to witness a colliding multiverse of epic proportions and, perhaps more importantly, avoid spoilers online. It translated to record opening day ticket sales. On Friday alone, the film collected $121 million, which is more than than Holland’s previous Parker ventures, 2017’s “Homecoming ($117 million debut) and 2019’s “Far From Home” ($92 million debut), collected in their respective opening weekends.

“No Way Home” amassed another $73 million on Saturday and $64 million on Sunday, with premium large formats like Imax accounting for a sizable chunk of ticket sales. After only three days in cinemas, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” is already the highest grossing-film of this year — and last year.

Anticipation for Peter Parker’s big-screen return had been so tremendous that AMC Theatres, the world’s biggest exhibition chain, sold a record 7 million tickets over the weekend while notching several company benchmarks in the process, including the biggest December opening of all time and post-reopening domestic attendance records. AMC says that for the first time since December 2019, when “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” hit the big screen, the movie theater chain has sold at least 1 million tickets each day between Thursday and Sunday.

“Historically, December is one of the biggest months of the year for major blockbuster releases, so to see ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ set a new all-time opening weekend box office record this month is significant not just for AMC, but for the entire theatrical industry,” said Adam Aron, AMC’s chairman and CEO. “We commend our friends at Sony Pictures and Marvel on their wonderfully successful movie, which millions of people have already watched at a U.S. AMC theatre in just four days.”

At Cinemark, another major circuit, “No Way Home” is battling to be the second-biggest opening in history.

“Spider-Man fans proved they are some of the most enthusiastic moviegoers with their record-breaking support of the film’s debut around the world, making this live-action multiverse an international sensation that must be seen on the big screen,” said Justin McDaniel, Cinemark’s senior VP of global content.

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