Spider-Man: No Way Home had an absolutely monster opening weekend. It’s already the highest grossing movie of the year domestically. However, we often see big movies like this one have a significant fall in their second weekend at the box office, and with another major release, The Matrix: Resurrections, hitting theaters today, we thought we were going to see a bit of competition. But based on current estimates, Spider-Man is about to have another big weekend at Neo’s expense.
Projections for The Matrix: Resurrections over at Box Office Pro see the new movie bringing in $32 million at the most over the next three days with a high end estimate of $55 million over the five days of the Christmas weekend period. It’s a slight increase over earlier projections, and it’s a solid “pandemic era” number, but Spider-Man: No Way Home has been putting up competitive pre-pandemic numbers and even though it brought in $260 mullion in its opening weekend, it's still expected to bring in around another $100 million in its second weekend.
As it currently stands The Matrix: Resurrections is actually looking to open in third place at the box office, as the animated film Sing 2 is tracking ahead of Keanu Reeves’ new movie. As a movie designed for the whole family, Sing 2 is simply more appealing to a wider audience. If an entire family is going to hit the theater this weekend and small kids are involved, Sing 2 will be the obvious option.
The hype surrounding Spider-Man: No Way Home was insane so seeing it put up massive numbers opening weekend was little surprise. There were so many rumors about what, and who, might have been part of the film and so there were clearly a lot of fans who didn’t want to wait and find out the answers. However, that could have meant that more of the total audience looking to see the film showed up opening weekend, which could have led to a more significant second weekend fall.
Instead, Spider-Man: No Way Home is looking at a second weekend that could still be the second best weekend for any movie all year, behind itself. If No Way Home does more than $90 million this weekend it will do better in its second weekend than Venom: Let There Be Carnage did in its opening weekend, which was the top opening for a movie this year before Spidey.
It could be that a lot of people are going back to see No Way Home a second time. Another possibility is that there’s even more of an audience for the film, those who couldn’t get tickets opening weekend or who wanted to avoid the massive crowds and show up when there were fewer people in the theaters, will be showing up this weekend.
On the other side of the coin you have the fact that The Matrix: Resurrections is available on HBO Max alongside its theatrical release. While it’s been difficult to pinpoint what percentage of the box office is being cannibalized by that decision, there are clearly some who might have gone to the theater but are staying home to watch movies when that’s an option.
