Spider-Man Is Number One Again At The Box Office As No Way Home Hits Another Big Milestone

Last weekend, Jon Watts’ Spider-Man: No Way Home took a little vacation from the top spot at the box office. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s Scream had a better-than-expected debut, enticing audiences with the mystery surrounding the identity of the new Ghostface, and its success pushed the Marvel blockbuster into second place. One week later, however, it’s a case of sixth verse, same as the first, as the web-slinging wall-crawler from Queens New York is now back at Number One.

Check out the full Top 10 below and join me after for analysis!

Spider-Man: No Way Home Is Now The Sixth Biggest Movie Of All Time Worldwide

Spider-Man: No Way Home spent its first few weeks in theaters as an unmatched box office draw, and Scream obviously changed the landscape with its arrival, but it continues to be rather staggering just how many tickets the film is selling. This is true not only looking at its performance domestically, the blockbuster now ranked as the fourth biggest hit of all time (not accounting for inflation), but around the world.

Thanks to the money that came in this past weekend from markets around the globe, Spider-Man: No Way Home is now officially the sixth highest movie ever. To date the Marvel Cinematic Universe feature has made $721,010,988, which is just about $21 million more than what Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World was able to make during its theatrical run in 2015. 

In order to take over fifth place – which is presently Joe and Anthony Russo’s Avengers: Infinity War – it would still need to make $357.2 million, and it can’t be said that the likelihood of that happening is very high. That being said, if audiences continue to go see it instead of anything else playing in theaters, it stands to still make a lot more money before it’s done being a title on marquees everywhere.

Could Spider-Man: No Way Home get to a point where it is threatening the third place positioning of James Cameron’s Avatar on the all-time domestic chart? That seems much more possible. According to The Numbers, the Marvel movie only needs to make $39.5 million more to reach that benchmark, and that would see it join J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($936.7 million) and Joe and Anthony Russo’s Avengers: Endgame ($858.4 million) as a significant part of cinema history.

To briefly look ahead to what’s coming out this week, it certainly looks like Spider-Man: No Way Home is going to be the number one movie again come next Sunday – the question will be just what kind of percentage drop it experiences.

Scream Has To Settle For Second Place After It’s Awesome Debut

As noted, Scream had a killer opening weekend in the last Friday-to-Sunday, having made about $10 million more than what prognosticators predicted in week prior – but it can’t honestly be said that it had a great sophomore experience. After having made more than $30 million in its first three days, the horror film experienced a 59 percent drop and only added $12.4 million to its total. To look on the bright side, that brings its domestic total thus far just over $50 million, and does successfully solidify its hold on the title as the highest grossing 2022 movie to date.

The percentage drop experienced by Scream is reminiscent of what a number of the hybrid release films did in 2021 (which is to say the features that debuted simultaneously in theaters and on digital platforms). The horror sequel isn’t streaming, however, so what’s up?

Last week I hypothesized that the surprise success of Scream was in part driven by the spoiler factor and fans not wanting to learn the identity of Ghostface before seeing the film for themselves – but now I wonder if that particular fear of missing out resulted in the movie having a front-loaded debut. The majority of people who really cared about seeing it decided to see it immediately, and those that made the decision to wait have stuck to that position. The movie didn’t perform badly in its second week, but there is now reason to question the potential of its legs. 

New Releases Redeeming Love And The King’s Daughter Fail To Make Much Of An Impact

Obviously a key thing that’s helping Spider-Man: No Way Home and Scream remain dominant titles right now is the fact that the major studios are holding off on releasing star-studded features and IP projects. The biggest new releases this past weekend were D.J. Caruso’s faith-based romance Redeeming Love and Sean McNamara’s fantasy adventure The King’s Daughter, and neither film succeeded in making a significant impression.

Redeeming Love played in over 1,900 theaters domestically this weekend and per location barely made more than Garth Jennings’ Sing 2, which is now in its fifth week of release. The film successfully made it into the box office Top 5, but it’s hard to imagine its stay there will be long, particularly because it’s not exactly garnering much buzz.

The King’s Daughter is a film with a more interesting story at least, as this is a feature that first went into production back in the spring of 2014 and has been sitting on a shelf for half-a-decade. Gravitas Ventures is behind the movie’s distribution, and didn’t do much in the way of marketing and advertising – which explains why it both failed to make over $1 million in its first three days, and why it only managed to make an average of $346 per theater. Given the drudging that the film got from critics, it doesn’t seem like its going to go down in history as a highlight in the respective careers of stars Pierce Brosnan and William Hurt, among others.

We’re keeping our fingers crossed that February 2022 is a much better month for the film industry, as January will be coming to a close with a whimper instead of a bang. There won’t be any new wide releases hitting theaters this Friday, and it’s hard to imagine that will have healthy results for the box office. 

Head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to see the aftermath, and to get a look at what’s ahead in the coming hear, check out our 2022 Movie Release Calendar.