While we'll have to wait and see how theaters fair over the next couple of weeks, it looks like - so far - Omicron has proven an easy foe for Spidey to wrangle. Spider-Man: No Way Home, the hotly anticipated threequel to Tom Holland's Spidey storyline featuring an all-star ensemble of returning villains, scored big at the box office despite fears over the emergent variant: its $121.5 million opening day is the second-highest of all time, just behind Avengers: Endgame (but, remarkably, ahead of Star Wars: The Force Awakens).
Moviegoers are loving it, which bodes well for word of mouth: the film has thwipped an A+ CinemaScore, the best grade ever for a live-action Spidey flick. Even critics have, broadly speaking, been fans: it currently has one of the highest Rotten Tomatoes scores of the MCU installements at ninety-four per cent. This is bested only by the likes of Black Panther, which went on to score a Best Picture nomination. This puts the Jon Watts directed picture at an estimated $242 to 247.5 million over three days, which would score it the fourth highest North American of all-time behind Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War, and The Force Awakens.
Suffice to say, if Spidey scores a $250 million debut, it'll be the greatest success of the pandemic era by a country mile. We mean, come on: you need mechanical arms to control financial power this incandescent (four of them, to be precise). Not that we needed it, but here's proof that - on the contrary to what some might believe - theaters are far from dead.
Spidey's only real competition also in debut is Guillermo del Toro's comparably small Oscar-hopeful Nightmare Alley, which is expecting to make around $3 to 4 million. Friday came in at $1.19 million - not much competition at all. Encanto, Disney's animated feature released last month, came in second with $1.65 million. Nightmare Alley was third. West Side Story, Steven Spielberg's musical remake, came in fourth with $1.06 million. Rounding off the top five is a resolute House of Gucci, taking $579,359.
While you'll want to avoid giving it a spin if you've still not watched the film - some of the later tracks are spoiler-heavy for fans in the know, be warned! - Michael Giacchino's frission-inducing soundtrack for No Way Home was released on streaming platforms yesterday. The terrific songsmith has collaborated with Watts on all three of his MCU Spidey trilogy installments, and also composed the scores of some of the biggest releases in recent years, including The Incredibles, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and Jurassic World. Talking about the release, he said:
“It really has been special to take this three-movie ride with Peter Parker and our talented director, Jon Watts. Over the course of the films, Peter grows from a typical teenager with everyday angst and awkwardness that so many of us had at that age, to a more confident young adult who understands his great responsibility. The added bonus of being able to travel and play with the multiverse brought me back several years reminding us all why we all love this character in the first place. It was an honor to add to the legacy of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.”
Spider-Man: No Way Home is in theaters now. It stars Holland, Zendaya, Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, and J. K. Simmons, among other exciting returning stars.