Tom Holland is in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Sony.
On opening day of a mega-movie, I usually watch the trailers on a big movie screen in IMAX or Dolby, but occasionally I also watch the movie in IMAX. I have done this since May 2015, when I went to the IMAX to see the new movies and the trailers. I was not surprised to see the theater 15% full on a day where the sequel would make $84 million in domestic theaters. The first time the show was sold out was yesterday. I had to buy a ticket to Spider-Man: No Way Home in the very front row because not every seat was taken.
The domestic preview gross for Spider-Man: No Way Home was $50 million. Cinemark says it's their biggest domestic opening night ever. I think that means their biggest advance-night gross, but it is still a hell of a thing. I think most of the people who showed up at 3 pm or 1:45 pm would have shown up at 6 or 7 pm if the show had started earlier. $50 million is behind only The Force Awakens and Avengers: Endgame. The former opened on this weekend in 2015, and made a record-breaking $247 million in its first weekend. The latter opened with a $356 million opening.
It would appear that No Way Home is playing like a mega- event, like an Avenger's-style mega- event, rather than just a Spider-Man 3 version 2.0. No Way earned $92 million over the Fri-Sun portion of a $185 million Independence Day opening frame, while Spider-Man: Homecoming earned $15.7 million through Thursday previews on its way to a $117 million domestic debut. Captain America: Civil War earned $179 million from a $25 million Thursday gross, while Black Panther earned $202 million from a $25 million Thursday gross. Save for the last two Avenger films, the MCU doesn't tend to overwhelm advance-night preview sales compared to other films like Harry Potter or the Vampire Diaries, as the films play to general audiences who have no issue sampling the latest entry on Saturday or Sunday afternoon.
I think we will see a Thurs-to-weekend multiplier closer to the Disney Star Wars movies. The film made a record $247 million over its Fri-Sun debut in 2015. The film earned $29 million toward the opening weekend of $155 million. Spider-Man: No Way Home has earned 19 percent of its opening weekend total as of Thursday, just like the Harry Potter 7.2 and the vampire movies. The film could make between $200 million and $263 million on its opening weekend. We could see bigger-than-ever front loading, but only a third of us will get it past $150 million by Sunday. Spider-Man's record-breaking $114 million debut in 2002 would be around $179 million at ticket prices in 2021, followed by Spider-Man 3's record-breaking $151 million debut in 2007.
We may see one of the biggest opening weekends of all time, if we assume this isn't just a massive front loaded weekend filled with MCU die-hards with the rest of the weekend traffic comparatively subdued. There is a skewed irony in Sony banking off Toby Macguire's Spider-Man franchise on a whim and then spending too much and trying too hard to turn Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man into the next MCU to now turn Tom Holland and Zendaya's multiverse sequel. I am expecting a strong holiday business because the film delivers on its promises. The only question is if No Way Home hits $200 million over the weekend.
