Box Office: ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Heads for Historic $240M-$250M Debut

Sony’s Spider-Man: No Way Home grossed a record-shattering $121.5 million at the Friday box office for a projected weekend debut of $250 million, well ahead of expectations. If those estimates hold, the superhero pic will secure the third or fourth top biggest domestic opening of all time in a stunning turn for the box office recovery and despite worries over the omicron variant.

Friday’s gross was the second-biggest opening day of all time in North America behind Avengers: Endgame ($157.5 million) and the biggest ever for the month of December, not adjusted for inflation.

No Way Home is the first film in the COVID-19 era to zoom past $100 million in its domestic launch and do the sort of business a Hollywood tentpole could count on before the pandemic struck almost two years ago. Until now, the biggest weekend opening of the COVID era was $90 million.

The Sony and Marvel movie is being buoyed by a coveted A+ CinemaScore, a huge showing in Imax theaters and glowing exit scores, including a definite recommend score of 91 percent. (Rivals say the exits are “unreal.”) Spider-Man is also benefiting from an ethnically diverse audience.

The list of all-time biggest domestic openings is led by Avengers: Endgame ($357 million) and followed by Avengers: Infinity War ($257.6 million), Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($248 million), Star Wars: The Last Jedi ($220 million) and Jurassic World ($208.8 million), not adjusted for inflation.

While No Way Home is a much-needed win, Hollywood would feel much better if the wealth was being spread around among different types of movies.

Elsewhere at the box office this weekend, Guillermo Del Toro’s Nightmare Alley is the latest adult-skewing title to disappoint (and sorely) with a projected weekend opening in the $3 million range. And Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story is expected to tumble 65 percent or more in its second weekend, furthering the argument that midrange movies and adult-skewing films are an endangered species theatrically.

Spider-Man’s Friday gross of $121.5 million included a massive $50 million in Thursday previews.

The film scored the third-biggest preview gross of all time behind Avengers: Endgame ($60 million) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($57 million), a remarkable feat considering the ongoing pandemic and concerns over the omicron variant. To date, omicron doesn’t appear to be impacting the North American box office to any large degree.

The same can’t be said of European markets, where omicron is forcing cinema closures or restrictions in a number of territories.

Yet even internationally, No Way Home is easily finding its way, grossing a mega $181.4 million in its first three day to finish Friday with a global haul of $302.9 million. The U.K. leads with a mighty $24.9 million, followed by Mexico with $20 million. The film is shattering records across Latin America, including boasting the biggest opening day of all time in Mexico and several other markets.

And across the ocean, it opened midweek to a huge $10.1 million in the U.K. to score the biggest Wednesday of all time despite a surge in COVID cases across England and Ireland.

No Way Home, reuniting director Jon Watts and star Tom Holland, is from Sony’s Columbia Pictures, which controls the film rights to Spider-Man, and Disney’s Marvel Studios, home to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The $200 million-plus event pic is receiving an exclusive theatrical release. It began playing Thursday at 3 p.m. local time in more than 3,700 theaters across the country. It will be showing in 4,325 cinemas by Friday, including all Imax locations.

Spider-Man: No Way Home combines three generations of Spider-Man movies and includes previous villain actors Willem Dafoe (2002’s Spider-Man), Alfred Molina (2004’s Spider-Man 2) and Jamie Foxx (2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2). It also stars Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jacob Batalon, Marisa Tomei, Jon Favreau and Benedict Wong.

On Wednesday morning, significant segments of Spider-Man: No Way Home were leaked online, with Sony working as quickly as possible to snuff them out. Large sections of the highly anticipated film began popping up on YouTube via innocuous Spider-Man searches.

Dec. 17, 1:30 p.m. Updated with revised weekend estimates.
Dec. 18, 7:15 a.m. Updated with revised weekend estimates.