Spider-Man: No Way Home sets pandemic record with $50 million Thursday box office
The movie had the third-largest preview box office of all-time
Aux News Spider-Man
Spider-Man: No Way Home made a massive $50 million dollars during its opening Thursday night screenings. That’s a record for the pandemic-era; the previous biggest opening was July’s Black Widow, which made $13.2 million during preview screenings.
No Way Home’s opening box office haul is the third-highest of all time for a Thursday night, per Deadline. The two films ahead of it? 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, which pulled $60 million, and 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which netted $57 million.
The newest Spider-Man installment is projected to be the first pandemic-era movie to cross over the $100 million mark for its opening weekend, with final estimates between $150 and $180 million. That’s partially because of great advance-sales numbers.
But those box office estimates could be wrong, since the movie is unfortunately being released just as the Omicron COVID variant is beginning to pick up steam stateside. In New York City, Broadway shows and the Radio City Rockettes have already had to cancel shows this week due to COVID outbreaks. Anxious moviegoers might decide to risk being spoiled and wait a week or two before heading out to see Spidey and friends.
The new movie has, of course, been subject to tons of speculation, since trailers revealed that Spider-Man villains from previous films—most notably, Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock—would be crossing into the current MCU canon. Andrew Garfield and Tobey McGuire have also been heavily rumored to reprise their own versions of Peter Parker in the movie, but Garfield denied it was true.
So far, 2021's box office winner has been Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which brought in $224 million domestically. Next was Sony’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage which made an impressive $212 million. Black Widow followed with $183 million.
As the COVID situation continues to evolve, next year’s box office remains a mystery. Warner Bros. has insisted they’ll abandon their controversial HBO Max day-and-date release strategy for 2022, but it’s always possible they’ll change their minds if theaters start to close again.
36 Comments
This is an anecdote rather than data, but this movie’s selling tickets like literally nothing I’ve seen since the pandemic. I’m not going to be able to see it until at least Monday, because the entire weekend is sold out already.
Is there going to be a Spoiler Corner for No Way Home? Because I really wanna talk about the movie.
I too have seen the movie and wish to talk about. However I’m wary of being the prick who spoils it for folks yet to see it.I’ll wait to anyone else’s lead.
They said there would be (or maybe I’m thinking of io9?), and I too have the deep yearning urge to discuss.
Please wait till tomorrow after about 5PM lol. I don’t even how you all got tickets for today or last night. My local IMAX was went from website crashing, to full, to website crashing, to finally being able to grab decent seats for a Saturday matinee.
I watched a YouTube video that spoiled the whole thing. I can now comfortably wait until it is streaming without complaining about friends and websites spoiling it for me.I beat you to the punch, internet!
I’ve been going to the theater again since late summer but mostly because I only go to early afternoon showings when almost nobody is in the theater or it’s empty enough that nobody is immediately next to me and even then most people wear masks during the movie. I really want to see Spider-Man but I can only go during the evening showings which I’m sure will be packed. I’ll probably have to wait a week or two for it to calm down, especially with cases going wild now
Caught the French Dispatch a couple of weeks ago on a Tuesday afternoon with a total of 3 other people in the theater. Might be a while until I can enjoy similar conditions with Spider-Man, but on the other hand it’s not as if there are a dearth of showings.
I mostly go to late-evening showings (after 9 pm, or 10 pm if I can swing it!), and the theaters are by and large empty — so I feel perfectly safe because nobody’s sitting any closer than 50 feet away from me.
Same – saw Shang-Chi three weeks after its release at 12:30 pm on a Tuesday. Was the only person in the theater. It was glorious.
I always see MCU movies at the IMAX in Providence, RI and when you buy seats it then eliminates the two seats on either side to keep some distance. Which is why I’m seeing it tomorrow during a matinee, because that massively reduces available seats and they were selling so fast they were the only ones I could get that weren’t way off center or in the front rows. Either way, I’m vaccinated, and boosted as of three days ago, wear a mask in public, yet and covid variants are never going to stop. At a certain point that reality has to be accepted. The virus is going to run its course like most multi-reservoir RNA viruses do at this point.
A super-spreader of a movie.
cram into a theatre for 2 hours before seeing all your friends and family for the holidays with a new, more contagious variant on the loose? What could go wrong? I’ve heard of more people getting cases in the past week than I have in the past 5 months. Shit is getting real again.
here in toronto you can’t buy movie tickets for any other day than today, so i imagine they’re going to re-introduce some seating restrictions. i have tickets for monday, so we’ll see.
Man, just saw the film and it is at the top of the list of my favorite Marvel movies. Spiderman In To the Spider-verse is still my favorite Spiderman movie, but this is close to it. So for selfish reasons really glad to see that it is doing so well in the box office.
I agree with all that! Up there with the best MCU films, at any rate, and second only to Spider-Verse of all the Spider-films.
The evening shows are definitely pretty packed but there are still plenty of seats out there. Early shows in the late morning and early afternoon are completely open tomorrow around me and I was able to get a solo seat on the way to the theater last night. (I don’t count the floor level as real seats).
Well, that can’t possibly be right. We had it on such good authority that the reception of Eternals meant the MCU was completely dead.
People are tired of superheroes. Big CGI mess at the end! All of these movies feel the same. If we really want theaters to return to normal, we need Terrence Malick to adapt À la recherche du temps perdu. That’ll put butts in seats.
Malick actually just signed in to do the next Superman reboot
Spider-Man: No Way HOmicron I’m going to a very early showing next week, looking very empty so far, because I know that unlike most people, I won’t be going to any crowded events in a few weeks from now.
Over here in UK we’re meant to be in a non-lockdown lockdown, but O2 London was heaving when I was making my way home from afternoon screening.I’d rather go see the film now while cinemas are still open. I wouldn’t be too surprised if daft Boris decides to introduce a more strict lockdown.Obviously folks should always prioritise their health, but I’d say see the film now while you can.
My wife and I have been back to see two movies since we got our third shot two months ago. We went on a Friday afternoon and waited until just before we got to the theater to buy tix so we could get seats as far away from others as we could. But this one my son wants to see, and his last shot was in May. Looking at the seating chart for every show this weekend shows pretty much nothing unless we want to be right next to everybody. My next non-holiday weekday off is in three weeks so I figure that’s when we’ll feel comfortable going. I hate to wait because I know spoilers will be unavoidable after the next few days, but that’s just the way it goes.
I’m just going to wait for it to hit streaming because no movie is worth the risk with the new variant looking a lot more contagious than I care to test any more than I have to in the general public. spoilers are a lot easier to deal with than fluid in your lungs.
I hate to say it, but there’s really not a lot that could be spoiled that hasn’t already been common knowledge for months now. I actively avoid spoilers (I don’t hate them, I just prefer surprises) but the rumor mill on this film has just been a nightmare.
That’s good to know. And even though I haven’t seen anything yet confirming the previous Spider-Men (Spiders-Men? Spider-Mans?) will show up, I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t happen.
Spiders-Man
Eh I’ll probably watch it at home at some point. Haven’t seen a Marvel thing in theaters since 2018 and I did not care for Far From Home.
There’s no need to use the pandemic as a qualifier in this case. This is going to be one of the biggest openings ever. In fact, the pandemic makes this even more impressive; imagine how big it would be you didn’t have whatever percentage of people who were still wary about sitting in a theater, especially on opening weekend.
but it’s always possible they’ll change their minds if theaters start to close again. Nothing is going to make theaters close again, America has 100% given up on any sort of actual mitigation.
This is the first Marvel movie I’ve wanted to see at the cinema since Endgame but in the UK Omicron is causing enormous misery, especially in London where the infection rate is shooting through the roof, so it’s not to be. First world problems and all that, I know, but I was just starting to feel vaguely okay about leaving the house (having had three doses of the vaccine so far, the most recent a month ago) and now that’s no longer the case.
I would recommend trying an early screening, anything after 5pm you’re basically getting the big crowds.Easy for me to say of course, but O2 cineworld 3.30pm was just the right amount of people spread out in Super Screen.
Omicron comin’
Have next week off. Will go see an early matinee in a much less crowded theater. I doubt the projections are off BTW – seems like every weekend showing is near sold out by me. People also seem to generally not care about Omicron – there is definitive pandemic fatigue going on.Not commenting on it – just stating what I observe.
With the US still averaging 1,300 deaths a day and now bracing for a new variant wave, I don’t think it’s the right time to be packing into theaters or celebrating their box office success. I’m staying home to ensure a happy holiday season.
We have a small theater down the street that does lots of afternoon showings, so its really easy to get seats away from anyone but my wife and I if we just wait until a little after showtime to get our tickets. So far we’ve seen Black Widow, Shang-Chi, Eternals, and Spidey in theaters with less than 20 people in them, all separated out and masked up, so i’ve felt fairly safe lately