On the big screen, Spider-Man has been rebooted three times in the last decade, and as a result there were some concerns that fans might not flock to Jon Watts' Spider-Man: Homecoming quite like past features starring Marvel's famous wall-crawler. It turns out that this unease was entirely unnecessary, however, as the movie just had one of the biggest openings of Summer 2017. Check out the full chart below!
While the movie didn't manage to grab the opening weekend record for a Spider-Man title, Spider-Man: Homecoming still managed to have an incredibly impressive start at the box office, pulling in an excellent $117 million domestically (it's managed to make $257 million globally so far). The three day numbers are enough to make it the second biggest debut for the webslinger, as it surpassed the openings of four other Spidey flicks but still fell behind Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3 - which managed to make $151 million when it first came out in 2007.
The performance of Spider-Man: Homecoming is fascinating when looked at in comparison to other franchise titles this summer, because it seems to be part of an interesting trend. As we wrote about last week, this has been a surprisingly rough summer for sequels, as everything from Alien: Covenant to Transformers: The Last Knight to Despicable Me 3 has disappointed in the U.S.... but that trend hasn't seemed to affect the major comic book adaptations. Before Spider-Man: Homecoming, two other big winners from the season so far include James Gunn'sGuardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman, making $385 million and $368 million domestically respectively (and they're not done yet). Certainly not to be ignored is the fact that all three have received some of the best reviews among major blockbusters, but it's also significant evidence against those who keep saying that the "comic book movie genre" is not long for this world.
With Spider-Man: Homecoming being the only wide release from this past Friday, the second most notable performance of the weekend is Round Two for Edgar Wright's Baby Driver -- which had yet another strong showing while dropping from the second slot to the third. The $12 million earned by the movie represents just a 38 percent drop from its opening weekend -- which was buoyed by positive reviews and buzz -- and now the film had made a total of $56.8 million domestically ($25 million more than Wright's previous domestic high-earner, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World). According to Box Office Mojo, the film's global total is now over $70 million, and because Baby Driver was just made for a reported $34 million, it means that a sequel is a legitimate possibility.
As for the rest of the box office, most titles only found their ranks shifted one or two slots - with the exception of Wonder Woman, which held on to fourth place; and The Big Sick, which more than doubled its number of theaters and leapt up to eighth on the Top 10.
Looking ahead, we should see some more interesting shake-ups coming next week. Following the incredible success of both Rise of the Planet of the Apes ($481 million globally) and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes ($710 million globally), the critically-acclaimed War For The Planet of the Apes will be dropping into theaters on Friday, and it will be joined in wide release by the new horror feature Wish Upon. Will the Apes take the top spot, or could Spidey beat it out with a strong second weekend? We'll find out when next week's report goes live!
