It's a call that's echoed through movie halls across the land over the past two months: we want Spider-Man! In news to absolutely no one slightly in the box office know, Spider-Man: No Way Home has truly ensnared the goods for Sony since it released just prior to Christmas, achieving pandemic era records — and scoring huge totals both domestic and abroad — faster than an eight-legged freak can crawl up a wall. Now in its seventh week of playing, it holds onto the No. 1 spot, beating out reasonably fresh competition from horror franchise flick Scream and family favorite Sing 2.
Over the weekend, the Spidey sequel made $11 million from 3,675 North American venues, just 17% down on the prior weekend — especially good holds when the Omicron surge is accounted for. That makes for a $735 million total at the domestic box office so far, strengthening its historic position as the fourth-highest grossing North American release ever.
With such strong holds — any movie in the current moment, given pandemic conditions, would bite your hand off for an $11 million open, let alone seventh week addition — it feels salient to turn attention to the Na'vi colored elephant in the room: Avatar's third-biggest domestic total, at $760 million. At the beginning of Spidey's run, no doubt Sony execs would've popped champagne to the idea of No Way Home beating the pandemic odds to achieve such a grand feat, but now, it's less a case of if, and a more inevitable when. It's just $25 million behind at present, something it could very feasibly make over the next three weekends — a grand late-February gift for the web slinger, no doubt.
In terms of global box office, however, James Cameron's erstwhile behemoth needn't fret: at $2.8 billion, it has a billion-dollar buffer, and it'll be all but impossible for No Way Home to web up that sort of dough. Especially with the lack of the Chinese market.
Elsewhere, Scream took second place on domestic box office charts, bringing in a respectable $7.3 million between Friday and Sunday — a 40% dip from the previous weekend. Nonetheless, with $62.1 million so far on a $25 million production budget, executives at studio Paramount won't be all that cut up about it. Sing 2, which also debuted in the holiday season, landed in the number three slot with $4.8 million. Fourth was Universal's faith-based romantic drama Redeeming Love with a less than praise-worthy $1.85 million. Rounding off the top five was The King's Man, Disney and 20th Century's franchise prequel, with $1.8 million.