Opening weekends might be what generate the most publicity, but the ultimate success or failure or a movie is typically determined by how well it holds. What's the appetite like after the diehards, who were always going to see it regardless of reviews or the plans of their friends, go see the movie in the first few days? Well, let the record show, when it comes to Spider-Man: Far From Home, there was plenty of appetite left after its debut.
This weekend, Spider-Man: Far From Home pulled in more than $45M of additional revenue in the United States, easily enough to power past Toy Story 4, which still had enough momentum to stick in second place at more than $20M. You can check out the full box office round-up below, per Box Office Mojo...
If you make a good movie about a subject matter people like, they'll almost certainly show up. That's the extremely simple lesson to take from both Toy Story 4 and Spider-Man: Far From Home. The general public wasn't necessarily on the edge of its seat clamoring for either of these movies, though there was certainly interest in Far From Home after Homecoming worked so well, but the diehards, fired up by the good reviews, fueled the first weekend, and the positive words coming from those who went initially have helped carry both of the movies forward. Expect both of the movies to be on the charts a month or more from now.
I'm not entirely sure what Paramount expected from Crawl, director Alexandre Aja's latest, but with a budget of just $17M, this $12M opening is pretty solid. Good word of mouth should carry it to a really solid profit. I've heard a little bit of surprise from some observers about both the Rotten Tomatoes score and the weekend numbers, particularly that it beat Stuber, but it's actually a similar story to the director's previous effort, Piranha 3D, which was another ridiculous monster movie that found the balance between a wild premise, a monster and a lot of dumb fun.
The results were much less satisfying for Stuber. The FOX comedy got a nice marketing push from the studio, but less than stellar reviews and lukewarm interest ultimately produced a pretty bad score. What's interesting and still unknown is what this may do for the careers of Dave Bautista and Kamail Nanjiani. Both men have gotten good reviews in mostly supporting performances (apart from Nanjiani's leading role in the wonderful Big Sick), but it's unclear if either will ever emerge as a bankable star of moderately budgeted or higher movies. I hope both get several more chances, but Hollywood is a funny, sometimes unpredictable business and you never really know.
We'll be back next weekend when you can look for The Lion King to leave a huge paw print in the box office.
