It’s the only COVID-era film to hit the milestone thus far
Spider-Man: No Way Home has officially grossed over $1billion (£746.4million) at the global box office, making it the first Hollywood film to do so since 2019.
It reached the milestone in just 12 days, Sony announced on Sunday (December 26), making it the third-fastest film to gross $1billion. It follows Avengers: Endgame (which hit $1billion in five days) and Avengers: Infinity War (11 days), both of which also featured Tom Holland as Spider-Man in their ensemble casts.
No Way Home also comes as the first film to gross $1billion since the COVID-19 pandemic started. The last film to make as much was Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker, which landed in December of 2019. No Way Home is on track to outperform The Rise Of Skywalker by a significant margin, though. It drew in $260million (£194million) in its opening weekend, giving it the second-highest domestic box office opening of all time (after Avengers: Endgame).
The opening weekend also marks the highest ever for a Hollywood film released in December, the highest for a Spider-Man film, and the highest ever earned by a Sony Pictures release.
In a statement shared to CNN Business, Paul Dergarabedian – a senior media analyst at Comscore – said: “What this represents is quite mind-boggling. These numbers would be very impressive in the pre-pandemic era, but for Spider-Man: No Way Home to sprint to a billion dollars in this marketplace is really hard to wrap your mind around.
“The monumental achievement of ‘No Way Home’ hitting this number cannot be overstated for this industry right now.”
In announcing the opening weekend numbers, Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group chairman and CEO Tom Rothman said: “This weekend’s historic Spider-Man: No Way Home results, from all over the world and in the face of many challenges, reaffirm the unmatched cultural impact that exclusive theatrical films can have when they are made and marketed with vision and resolve.”
Spider-Man: No Way Home marks the end of the Homecoming trilogy, the first collaboration between Sony (which owns the film rights to Spider-Man and a litany of related characters) and Marvel Studios. Fans can rest easy knowing a sequel is in “active” development, however, as Marvel boss Kevin Feige confirmed earlier this month.
The news followed Holland speaking candidly about the future of Spider-Man on the big screen, saying that he wants the films to be “more diverse” going forward.
In a four-star review of Spider-Man: No Way Home, NME’s Olly Richards said: “To go into detail about how the film explores the soul of Peter Parker would give away secrets – although knowing ‘spoilers’ should in no way ruin your enjoyment of the story, such is a the quality of the character writing – but suffice to say that in terms of getting to the heart of the character, No Way Home is the ultimate Spider-Man film.
“There are moments here that make you want to cheer and weep simultaneously. It’s not the most visually spectacular, it’s not the funniest, but it’s the most emotionally rich. For Spider-Man fans who’ve stuck with the character through the soaring highs and the sticky lows, this is your reward. And it makes it all worth it.”
The next instalment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will land on May 6, with Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness set to continue the storylines established in Spider-Man: No Way Home and the Disney+ series WandaVision.
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