Since Sam Raimi's Spider-Man spun into theaters in May 2002, movies featuring the webslinger have been incredibly popular. That first Spider-Man became the first film to gross over $100 million in just its opening weekend. Of the eight subsequent Spider-Man movies, the only ones not to break $100 million on their first weekends were films that opened mid-week, with two exceptions. One was The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which ended up killing that particular thread of the franchise. The other was Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which could only pull in $35.4 million when it opened in December 2018. The film would have long legs, win the Oscar for Animated Feature, and become a cult hit on home viewing, but would that be enough to make the sequel a bigger success than the first one?
The answer is an unqualified yes. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse opened to a huge $120.7 million, the franchise's third-best opening behind only Spider-Man 3 and Spider-Man: No Way Home. It was the biggest debut of the summer so far, and second biggest of the year behind only The Super Mario Bros. Movie. And with rapturous word-of-mouth, it seems likely to smash past $300 million and maybe even $400 million. It won't have the summer to itself--Elemental and The Flash are only two weeks away--but this seems like a good bet to stick around for weeks on end. And for those sweating the cliffhanger ending, the next one is already scheduled for March (though don't be shocked it if gets moved to next June).
With Spidey soaking up all the attention, last week's champ, The Little Mermaid found far fewer people wanted to be part of her world. The Disney live-action remake fell 57% to $41.4 million, for a ten-day total of $187 million. That's a bit less than Aladdin got on its second weekend, though to be fair, Aladdin's competition that week was the slightly less intimidating Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Rocketman. Still, if Mermaid doesn't want to fall behind its stablemate, it should try to stabilize in the coming weeks.
Opening in third, the latest adaption of one of Stephen King's many, many short stories, The Boogeyman, was able to frighten up some business, debuting to $12.4 million. That's about half of what Evil Dead Rise opened up to in April, and well below the openings of Scream VI and M3GAN, but better than what Renfield and The Pope's Exorcist arrived with. A final gross somewhere between $30 and $40 million seems likely.
Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 brought in $10.7 million for a total of $323.2 million. It might be able to pass the first film's final gross by next weekend. Fast X continues to crash, making $9.6 million for a total of $128.9 million. This one is almost certainly heading to the lowest gross of this franchise since the mid-aughts.
For roughly two months, The Super Mario Bros. Movie has been holding down the fort as the only PG movie out in theaters. But with The Little Mermaid and Spider-Man now out, and Elemental coming in a couple of weeks, Mario can now head out of the arcade and into home systems. The year's biggest film brought in another $3.4 million for a total of $566.3 million.
Leading the parade of last week's flops, About My Father fell to $2.1 million for a ten-day total of $8.8 million. At least it held up a little better than The Machine, which made $1.7 million for a ten-day total of $8.7 million. Except both titles to wrap up just north of $10 million.
Rounding out the Top 10 were two other flops from last week. You Hurt My Feelings has a ten-day total of $3 million and Kandahar has a ten-day total of $4.2 million. It's hard to see either film making much more than $5 million.
Spider-Man looks to stay at #1 for the weekend, but there is one new title that has a shot at taking the title. The Transformers movies dominated the box office in the late aughts and early teens, but it quickly became a case of diminishing returns, with 2017's Transformers: The Last Knight out-and-out flopping and 2018's Bumblebee doing OK business (but getting much better reviews). Now, the series is back with Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, a 90s-set prequel starring Anthony Ramos. Will audiences one again agree there's more than meets the eye with a Transformers film? Or will Spidey continue to dominate your friendly neighborhood moviehouses? We'll find out next week.
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