For the weekend of December 17-19, 2021, Spider-Man: No Way Home had the second-highest opening in box-office history, behind only Marvel's Avengers: Endgame. Theaters have been struggling ever since COVID, but if the title is big enough, and enough people feel good about being safe to go, whether it's third booster shots or COVID's a hoax, they went, and Disney has to be thrilled.
Spidey's success left no room for anything else. Nightmare Alley might have done better with a limited-release slow-rollout. Good cast, good reviews, but people would rather see Spider-Man. Its been a rough season for adult-oriented fare. Nightmare Alley, Last Night in Soho, The Last Duel, etc., all fell on their face despite their pedigrees.
In fact, when you look at how titles 2-10, there's still cause for concern. The blockbusters float all boats, but the midrange titles, the movies with $60 million budgets as opposed to $200 million budgets, those things are becoming a dying breed. West Side Story's hope of being a word-of-mouth Greatest Showman style hit are dead.
When I look at the highest opening weekends of all time, if you remove the movies that are sequels, comics, Disney live-action remakes, you have to go down to #23 to find The Hunger Games. In fact, of the 61 movies that have ever opened to $100+ million domestic, there are only 3 that weren't sequels/comics/Disney live-action remakes: The Hunger Games, It, and The Secret Life of Pets.
Opens This Week
THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS with Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss.
THE KING'S MAN with Ralph Fiennes, Harrison Dickerson and Rhys Ifans.
SING 2 with the voices of Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon.
A JOURNAL FOR JORDAN with Michael B. Jordan and Chante Adams.
AMERICAN UNDERDOG with Zachary Levi, Anna Paquin and Dennis Quaid.
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