Spider-Man No Way Home seems to be shaking off the Omicron blues, hitting more than $20 million each day since Christmas, except for New Year’s Eve when many families were partying. While this is less than it could have made had Omicron not been surging regionally in the United States, the amount is nonetheless impressive. Because of this pickup in Spider-Man ticket sales, it seems that Sony’s film starring Tom Holland will ride into the Domestic Top Ten for all theatrical history. The movie could take the tenth spot late Sunday evening, or perhaps into Monday.
Once Spider-Man gets into the top ten, the question then becomes “where will it land?” The most likely finish-line spot seems to be the sixth highest grossing film of all time, knocking Jurassic World and Titanic down, but not quite reaching Avenger’s Infinity War off it’s top five pedestal. In order to hit sixth-of-all-time, Spider-Man will need to gross another $100 million, but that honestly seems doable if Sony keeps it at the box office through January. What else is going to compete with it during that time? Sure, it’s a graveyard month for movies, and Omicron may yet prove to be a bigger deal in disrupting theaters, but this movie has shown incredible staying power.
All-Time Domestic Top Ten Box Office
| 1 | 2015 | Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens | Walt Disney | $936,662,225 | ||
| 2 | 2019 | Avengers: Endgame | Walt Disney | $858,373,000 | ||
| 3 | 2009 | Avatar | 20th Cent… | $760,507,625 | ||
| 4 | 2018 | Black Panther | Walt Disney | $700,059,566 | ||
| 5 | 2018 | Avengers: Infinity War | Walt Disney | $678,815,482 | ||
| 6 | 1997 | Titanic | Paramount… | $659,363,944 | ||
| 7 | 2015 | Jurassic World | Universal | $652,306,625 | ||
| 8 | 2012 | The Avengers | Walt Disney | $623,357,910 | ||
| 9 | 2017 | Star Wars Ep. VIII: The Last Jedi | Walt Disney | $620,181,382 | ||
| 10 | 2018 | Incredibles 2 | Walt Disney | $608,581,744 |
If Spider-Man No Way Home can get an additional $100 million at home and another $50 million abroad, the movie will be just shy of the $1.5 billion mark. That’s a heck of a run at a time when many movies have been losing money like a drunken sailor playing double-or-nothing.
Will Hollywood learn the lessons needed to crank out more Spider-Man No Way Home films and less Space Jam A New Legacy or The Eternals? It’s going to be a hard pill for an industry that wants to be on the cutting edge culturally. But money is the most important thing out there, and Hollywood is finding that it can neither count on China nor postmodern social agendas to earn profits. There are sure to be more attempts at the latter strategy, but overall I think we’re about to see a move to better movies, more traditional storytelling, and getting back to the characters and heroes we care about.
Let me know in the comments below if you feel the same. Is 2022 the year the entertainment executives take note of bad strategy?
