In what can only be described as spectacular, the opening of SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME beat even the most optimistic industry projections by ringing up $253M at North American box offices. Not only dies this number shatter all records for openings during the pandemic, it also beat the pre-pandemic opening of STAR WARS IX: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER, which pulled in $177M on the same pre-Christmas weekend in 2019.
After checking the record books, this year’s Spiderman easily broke the box office record for Spiderman franchise movie openings, set by SPIDERMAN 3 back in 2007 with a $151M 3-day total from 5/4-5/6. In fact, SPIDERMAN: NO WAY HOME has delivered a miraculous holiday gift to an industry in need, the third-highest 3-day opening weekend box office in history.
In fact, SPIDER-MAN’s opening was so dominant that it accounted for 92% of the total box office for all pictures in theatres. This is even greater than the dominance of AVENGERS: ENDGAME, the number one opener of all time, which took in $357M from 4/26/2019 – 4/28/2019 and accounted for 89% of the total for all pictures in a release that weekend.
SPIDER-MAN carried the results for the current weekend to 113% of the same weekend of 2019, which only produced $243M. This is the first time in the pandemic era that an entire weekend exceeded the same weekend in 2019.
Disney’s ENCANTO finished in second place, grossing $6.5M and dropping only 35% from last week. 20th Century’s WEST SIDE STORY came in third with $3.4M. Almost completely eclipsed by SPIDEY’S record-breaking performance was NIGHTMARE ALLEY’s opening weekend, which produced only $3.0M and finished in an embarrassing fifth place.
