‘Spider-Man’ Tops ‘Jurassic World’ And Nears $1.7 Billion

Sony and Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home topped the box office yet again in this unfortunately empty post-holiday frame, earning a robust $14.125 million for a $721 million 38-day total. That’s a mere 28% drop for the weekend, giving it a better sixth-weekend hold than pretty much any “big deal” pre-Christmas opener in recent memory (the Star Wars sequels, Tron: Legacy, the Middle Earth epics, etc.) save for Aquaman, Titanic and Avatar.

In raw grosses, it has the 17th-biggest weekend-six gross ever, ahead of even The Phantom Menace ($14.1 million in 1999) and The Force Awakens ($14 million in 2016). And if you remove the various leggy flicks that platformed (La La Land earned $14.5 million in weekend six which was just its second weekend in more than 750 theaters), Spider-Man: No Way Home is in the unadjusted top ten for sixth weekend grosses.

The Tom Holland/Zendaya/Benedict Cumberbatch MCU flick is benefiting from a near-total lack of demographic competition (Sing 2 skews young and Scream is an R-rated slasher movie) and a lack of Oscar season breakouts on par with (for example) The Revenant in 2016, Hidden Figures in 2017 and 1917 in 2020. With Morbius moved from January 28 to April 1, arguably to give Sony’s current Marvel blockbuster more space to swing, Spider-Man 3 version 2.0 has another week of open skies before the (fingers crossed) double whammy of Jackass Forever and Moonfall on February 4.

If it continues to leg out accordingly, it should end its domestic run with over/under $765 million domestic, with an obvious potential for an upward trajectory if A) it ends up with a Best Picture nomination and/or B) the February releases (including Death on the Nile and Tom Holland’s Uncharted) don’t break out. As of now, it’s the sixth-biggest single-territory grosser of all time, behind Avatar ($760 million domestic), Hi, Mom ($835 million in China), Avengers: Endgame ($858 million domestic), The Battle at Lake Changjin ($905 million in China) and The Force Awakens ($937 million domestic).

In terms of inflation-adjusted domestic earnings, it’s now in the top 30 ahead of Jurassic World, The Avengers and Black Panther. Once it passes Grease ($722 million), it’ll be the 13th-biggest post-Star Wars release even accounting for rereleases. And when reissues are tossed out (think the Special Edition releases of the Star Wars sequels, or the gazillion rereleases of Mary Poppins or One Hundred and One Dalmatians), it becomes the 19th-biggest “first theatrical run” domestic tickets-sold release ever.

Oh, and it is now the tenth-biggest IMAX global total of all time, with $105 million worldwide. So it’s got that going for it too. Speaking of worldwide, the film has now earned a remarkable $1.69 billion, passing The Lion King ($1.663 billion in 2019) and Jurassic World ($1.671 billion in 2015) on the all-timer’s list. It now sits at sixth place, behind Avengers: Infinity War ($2.048 billion in 2018), Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($2.068 billion in 2015), Titanic ($2.2 billion in 1997 and 2012), Avengers: Endgame ($2.79 billion in 2019) and Avatar ($2.8 billion in 2009).

It has “finally” passed the $943 million overseas cume of Frozen II (out of $1.45 billion global) to be the biggest domestic/overseas/global earner since Avengers: Endgame in 2019. And, yeah, that’s without a penny from China. Would we be talking about a $2 billion finish if the film were playing in China with pre-Covid circumstances? Maybe, as Far from Home jump 71% from Homecoming and earned $199 million in summer 2019. But with grosses like this, Sony clearly doesn’t need any help. I think they’ll live with a mere $1.8 billion global cume.