No movie has managed to land an opening weekend north of $100 million since the beginning of 2020, with Venom: Let There Be Carnage setting the previous benchmark with $90 million, but Spider-Man: No Way Home has been in the business of breaking records ever since it began rolling out internationally on Wednesday.
Even with the pandemic still looming in the background, with matters being made drastically worse due to the surge of the Omicron variant, Tom Holland’s latest outing under the spandex still managed to score the third highest-grossing first frame in history, with estimates placing No Way Home at around $253 million.
That would be an incredible feat even if we weren’t in the midst of the worst global health crisis for generations, and it’s a massive shot in the arm for the theatrical industry, and further proof that audiences are willing to return to the multiplex in massive numbers if you give them a good enough reason.
In this case, a multiversal adventure hailing from the world’s most popular franchise that combined three generations of web-slinging storytelling into one slice of fan service did the trick, and Spider-Man: No Way Home now sits behind only Avengers: Endgame and Infinity War on the list of all-time debutants.