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Source: Deadline
As the saying goes, if one is to go out, then it is better to do so not with a whimper, but with a bang. That certainly seems to be the mentality for the worldwide box office this year; despite having to slowly recover from the closure of nearly every theater in the world (the result of the ongoing and continuously evolving COVID-19 pandemic), the box office is finishing the year off on a high note, if only due to one film in particular. Not since December of 2019, just over two years ago, that a film was released that was able to earn a worldwide gross of over $1 billion, that being “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”. No film was able to achieve such a feat throughout the year 2020, as the closure of most theaters meant there was little revenue for any film released to generate, and that trend continued throughout most of 2021 as well. Despite some solid performances from such films as “F9” and “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”, there had not been a single film released throughout the year that was able to cross the coveted billion dollar mark. However, to quote another saying, good things come to those who wait, and for the box office, that wait was certainly worth it; just before the year’s end, one film in particular swung in (pun intended) to save the day, that being the long-anticipated and since-beloved “Spider-Man: No Way Home”.
As of Tuesday, December 28th, “Spider-Man: No Way Home”, the most recent installment of the insanely popular Marvel Cinematic Universe film franchise, has earned a domestic total of $516.4 million. This of course is far more than any other film has made at the North American box office since the start of the pandemic, but perhaps most significantly, it has surpassed the total of what “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”, the last billion dollar grosser since the end of 2019, made during the entirety of its run. Whereas that film earned a final gross of $515.2 million nationwide by the end of its theatrical tenure, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” was able to speed past it in only a matter of twelve days, and it still has plenty of time to build upon what it has already collected.
To succeed as much as it is would be enough of an achievement on its own, but the performance of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” is even more remarkable when compared to films that had come out several years before the pandemic began. The ticket sales generated by the film so far have it outpacing such films as 2018’s “Avengers: Infinity War” (by 9%) and 2017’s “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” (by 22%). In fact, “Spider-Man” is doing so well that it’s only trailing record-grossers “Avengers: Endgame” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”, and even then, by no more than 20%. As of this writing, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” is the third fastest film to reach $500 million domestically, a feat that would be commendable at any time, but is downright astonishing during a time when people might not be willing to go to a movie theater otherwise.
Of course, all of what has been said so far only relates to sales made in North America alone; when looking at the film’s performance on a global scale, the picture of its success becomes even more impressive. As of Tuesday the 28th, the international gross of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” has made it up to just under $645 million; combined with domestic sales, the total gross of the film so far is $1.19 billion. This makes the film the first in nearly two years to break past the billion dollar mark, and it’s even enough to get past “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”, which had earned $1.13 billion by the time its theatrical run had finished. Of course, as is the case with its domestic box office, there are still several weeks left for “Spider-Man: No Way Home” to earn even more revenue than it already has, so the gap between its final revenue count and that of “Rise of Skywalker”, the last film to gross more than a billion dollars, will most certainly be much larger than it already is.
How big that gap will be will depend entirely on the film’s performance in the coming weeks though, specifically in the drop-off of revenue between the previous Christmas weekend and the upcoming New Year’s weekend. At least at the domestic box office, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” is not expected to drop quite as much as it did last weekend (which saw a 68% drop from its opening weekend the week before), even with New Year’s Eve taking place on a Friday this year. Still, whatever happens from this point on will likely not matter much to Sony, the studio producing and distributing the film, as “Spider-Man” has already done more than enough to satisfy the studio. It’s now the biggest domestic earner for Sony (not adjusting for inflation) as well as the fifth biggest domestic earner for an MCU film, and on the overall list of highest-grossing films domestically, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” currently sits at #14. If its performance so far is any indication, the film will most likely enter the top 10 with little difficulty, possibly within the span of no more than a few weeks.
If there is one downside to “Spider-Man” overwhelming the box office, it’s the effect being had on other films that were recently released and are currently vying for whatever ticket sales aren’t being swallowed up by the superhero film. “Sing 2”, a sequel to the 2016 animated family film “Sing”, is currently the best-performing of the competition, earning around $54.78 million in its first seven days of release; while this is a better opening total than most animated films released in 2021, it’s still lagging behind the $93 million the original film made five years ago (though to be fair, that film didn’t have to contend with a global pandemic). Faring even worse are “The Matrix Resurrections” and “The King’s Man”, which many had hoped would make big bucks during the Christmas week but have only made $24.5 million and $12.4 million respectively during their first seven days. These films seem to demonstrate the risk of opening so close to such a highly anticipated blockbuster; while audiences may be willing to seek out alternatives to guaranteed blockbuster hits, there’s no certainty that said alternatives will be able to break out themselves.
Still, at the very least, theaters are more than content with having one film be enough to bring people out to the movies, and hopefully, similar occurrences will be more frequent throughout the coming year.
