‘Marry Me’ Tops Valentine’s Day, ‘Spider-Man’ Passes ‘Avatar’

Marry Me was the top film at the domestic box office for at least one day. The Jennifer Lopez/Owen Wilson flick, about a world-famous musician who marries a random fan during a live concert, earned $3.04 million on Valentine’s Day to bring its four-day total up to $10.99 million. That’s +109% from its $1.452 million Sunday total, with the old-school Hollywood rom com getting an obvious (and expected) boost from the unofficial holiday. That doesn’t make it a theatrical hit, any more than Mother’s Day became a hit in 2016 when Mother’s Day jumped 152% from its first Sunday ($2.24 million) to its second Sunday ($5.643 million) for a massive overall +32% second-weekend jump. The Julia Roberts/Jennifer Aniston/Kate Hudson ensemble still earned $32 million domestic and $48 million worldwide on a $25 million budget.  

Likewise, it was “neat” when Selma earned $5 million on Martin Luther King Day in 2015, its second Monday and 11th day in wide release, but that didn’t make or break Ava DuVernay’s biopic. The Oscar-winning drama earned $67 million worldwide on a $20 million budget. Halloween had already earned $137 million domestic when it earned $5.5 million on day 13 (10/31/18). The top movie of last Valentine’s Day was The Croods: A New Age with $864,895. However, the top movie on February 14, 2020 was Sonic the Hedgehog which nabbed $20.9 million on its opening day. It’s also the three year “anniversary” of Alita: Battle Angel’s $8.7 million opening day. The biggest V-Day gross is still the $42 million day three/Sunday gross of Deadpool in 2016. 

Universal claims that the film was also tops on Peacock on Friday and Saturday (no word yet about day three and day four). The film is still playing theatrically like a low-level Jennifer Lopez star vehicle. Hustlers is an exception, but Second Act ($35 million from a $6.5 million debut in December 2018) and The Boy Next Door ($35 million from a $15 million debut in early 2015) was more the norm. The film only cost $23 million, and I’m guessing money exchanged hands in terms of the Peacock deal, so this one obviously doesn’t need to break records to break even. Alas, Disney and 20th Century’s Death on the Nile earned $2.6 million on Monday for a $15.5 million four-day total. All hope rests on overseas for Kenneth Branagh’s $90 million all-star murder mystery. 

Sony’s Spider-Man: No Way Home earned $1.615 million on Monday to bring its domestic cume to $760.99 million. That puts it above the unadjusted $760.5 million domestic cume of James Cameron’s Avatar (counting a summer-2010 reissue). That makes Tom Holland’s MCU sequel the third-biggest domestic grosser of all time, behind only Avengers: Endgame ($858 million in 2018) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($937 million in 2015/2016). It’s tempting to argue that the film might have challenged those two absent Covid variables, but frankly I’d argue it has overperformed by virtue of being essentially the only event in town for the last two months. It would have been a big hit opening amid a conventional slate in July 2021 on the non-Covid timeline, but it wouldn’t have had the Christmas legs and the near-total lack of competition.  

We’ll see if Tom Holland’s Uncharted can also slightly overperform by virtue of being the next court-appointed “big movie for younger viewers” offering. In a non-Covid time, I’d argue the Sony release would be DOA, and Occom’s Razor may still apply. Still, it’s possible that, like Godzilla Vs. Kong, Free Guy and Dune, the video game adaptation will be a bigger event by virtue of scarcity than if it had just been another would-be franchise starting fish in a conventionally sized IP-centric pond. As for Spidey, No Way Home is now the 24th biggest domestic grosser when adjusted for inflation, and 1/3 of those (the Star Wars sequels, the Disney toons, etc.) are only higher by virtue of reissues. It’s in the top ten sans reissues for anything released since Jaws in 1975. 

There’s an outside chance, thanks to some remarkable weekend-to-weekend holds, that Spider-Man 3 version 2.0 will reach the $783 million adjusted cume of The Graduate ($105 million in 1967) but getting much higher than $1.8 billion worldwide will depend on a surprise China release. Granted, just because it eventually comes to China doesn’t mean it’ll make Far from Home-level ($199 million in 2019) grosses or even Homecoming-level ($116 million in 2017) earnings. Honestly, if I’m China, I’d let Spider-Man 3 and Venom 2 ($505 million thus far) in alongside Morbius. What better way to stick it to Disney than to let Sony’s Marvel movies stomp all over the Disney MCU offerings? Yes, Disney gets money from the Spider-Man movies too but having the not-quite-MCU flicks soar further beyond the Mouse House flicks would be a symbolic gesture.