It appears that Marvel-Sony deal really did work wonders for the Spider-Man franchise. While 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming was a box office success, outgrossing every previous Spider-Man movie except for Spider-Man 3, this summer’s sequel Spider-Man: Far from Home is a genuine box office smash to the tune of $1.109 billion worldwide.

In fact, that figure is enough to make Far from Home the highest grossing movie in Sony Pictures history, surpassing the $1.1 billion gross of previous record holder Skyfall. That’s an impressive feat, and one can’t help but point to Avengers: Endgame as a contributing factor to Far from Home’s success. Sure, Tom Holland is adorable and the John Hughes spin on the Peter Parker character makes these movies a delight, but there was added interest in Far from Home given that it was the first Marvel Cinematic Universe movie released after Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame, which brought all the previous films to an emotional conclusion.

spider-man-far-from-home-timeline-explained
Image via Sony Pictures

The question lingered: where does the MCU go from here? And Far from Home promised to offer a peek at what’s ahead, which no doubt contributed to its high box office numbers. After all, you have to imagine that a portion of the audience that saw Avengers: Endgame—the highest grossing movie of all time—was then spurred to see Far from Home in theaters. The Spider-Man sequel also used the whole “see it before the spoilers get out” marketing angle that surged the opening weekend receipts of Endgame.

To be clear, as far as we’re aware Marvel Studios receives no box office money from Spider-Man: Far from Home. The terms of the Marvel-Sony deal that led to Homecoming, Far from Home, and Holland’s roles in Captain America: Civil War and the last two Avengers movies saw each studio fully investing in and keeping the profits from its respective features, meaning that Marvel Studios makes zero dollars from Sony’s new standalone Spider-Man movies and Sony makes zero dollars from Civil War or Endgame. Instead, in exchange for taking the creative lead on producing the standalone Spider-Man movies, the annual fee that Marvel pays Sony to keep the toy and merchandising profits to the Spider-Man character at Marvel would be reduced from $35 million if Spider-Man: Homecoming grossed over $750 million—and it did.

spider-man-far-from-home-tom-holland-zendaya-2
Image via Sony Pictures

It’s been a mutually beneficial relationship thus far, and there’s no reason to think it won’t continue to be fruitful in the next inevitable Spider-Man sequel. After that, the original deal is up for renegotiation so it’ll be interesting to see what happens at that point. For now, however, I think Sony can rest easy knowing it made the right call in bringing Marvel in to help reboot its prized superhero possession.

To recap, below is a list of the worldwide grosses of every Spider-Man movie released by Sony thus far:

1. Spider-Man: Far from Home - $1,102,883,167

2. Spider-Man 3 - $890,871,626

3. Spider-Man: Homecoming - $880,166,924

4. Spider-Man - $821,708,551

5. Spider-Man 2 - $783,766,341

6. The Amazing Spider-Man - $757,930,663

7. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - $708,982,232

8. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse - $375,469,903

spider-man-3-image
Image via Sony Pictures
the-amazing-spider-man-2-andrew-garfield
Image via Sony Pictures
spider-man-into-the-spider-verse-miles
Image via Sony Pictures