Spider-Man: No Way Home on Sunday became the first pandemic-era movie to leap past USD 1 billion at the global box office after 2019’s Star Wars: the Rise of Skywalker. The third film in the Tom Holland-led trilogy achieved this feat despite the lengthening shadow of Omicron and the Covid-19 spike across North America and Europe, and still not having been released in the world largest cinema-going market, China, according to Variety.
It is also this year’s top-grossing film, streaking past China’s “The Battle at Lake Changjin” (USD 902 million) and the 25th James Bond film (and Daniel Craig’s last outing as 007), “No Time to Die”, which has grossed USD 774 million globally.
Sony’s comic-book epic, according to Variety, has reached the milestone in a near-record 12 days, tying with 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens as the third-fastest film to reach the billion-dollar benchmark. Only 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War and 2019’s Avengers: Endgame were quicker, smashing the coveted tally in 11 and five days, respectively.
Reporting these figures, Variety commented, “Those are huge box office receipts at a time when several new films (such as ‘The Matrix Resurrections’, ‘Sing 2’ and ‘The King’s Man’) are opening nationwide to notable ticket sales.”
Other new global releases struggled to pull ticket buyers away from Spider-Man: No Way Home. The Matrix Resurrections, Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow’s sci-fi sequel, landed with a thud in third place. The cerebral film arrived significantly behind expectations, scraping together USD 12 million from 3,552 cinemas in the US over the weekend and USD 22.5 million since Wednesday. Internationally, the film has generated USD 47 million so far, which brings its global haul to USD 69.8 million.
