It will come at the surprise of absolutely no one, but Spider-Man: No Way Home - the long-awaited threequel in Tom Holland's MCU Spidey trilogy, featuring a returning ensemble of all-star baddies - is absolutely tearing it up overseas. While it's yet to hit the domestic market, swinging into theaters tomorrow, it debuted in some markets as early as Wednesday, giving Sony a lot of reasons to be cheerful ahead of the holiday season. It's even racking up huge numbers in territories currently ravaged by the Omicron Covid-19 variant, where theaters are yet to be impacted by any legal restrictions.
Reports first emerged from Korea, where the film landed a $5.28 million opening, per Deadline. They cite this figure as "significant" for a number of reasons: the launch is 11% above the last Spidey title, Spider-Man: Far From Home, and the biggest day-one figure for any film to have premiered during the pandemic. The country was Far From Home's second-biggest international market after China, which is yet to date the trilogy-closer. Figures from the UK further reinforced No Way Home's glowing successes: bowing at £7.63 million ($10.1 million), it scored the best Wednesday launch of all time in the territory, topping No Time to Die's $6.6 million. The Bond installment had been the UK's best performing title to date. Potential restrictions could put a muzzle on No Way Home's bite, but let's wait and see.
Deadline points to four further international markets as demonstrative of the film's global success. In Mexico, it grabbed 190 million MXN ($9 million), for the territory's best-ever opening day, coming above Avengers: Endgame excluding that title's previews. Coming into Europe, where theater owners are particularly anxious over the increasingly volatile spread of Omicron, the film has boasted a similarly strong start. In France, Wednesday numbers were $4.3 million, 2% above Avengers: Infinity War. In Russia, the film logged the third-best opening day ever with $3.5 million. Finally, coming down to the Mediterranean, Sony celebrated its best opening day in Italy, bagging $3.4 million.
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That the title has achieved such record-breaking numbers in the Covid era, particularly at the advent of a new variant of concern which threatens to impact the hospitality sector across the globe, in remarkable. Omicron might prove too tricky a bad guy for even Spidey to take down, but Sony will surely be hoping that it doesn't put some dirt in their eyes.
Spider-Man: No Way Home hits theaters on December 17. It stars Holland, Zendaya, Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, and J.K. Simmons.