Spider-Man’s European vacation is helping him break records at the global box office. The blockbuster sequel Spider-Man: Far From Home continues to pack in audiences around the world, adding another $21 million to its domestic total just this past weekend. In the process, that pushed Spidey’s global cume to $970 million, making Far From Home the highest-grossing Spider-Man film in history.
Take a bow, Web head.
Spider-Man: Far From Home has outpaced its immediate predecessor in the MCU Spidey universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming. While that movie picked up the baton from Captain America: Civil War – and benefitted from having Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man in a supporting role – Homecoming topped off at $880 million worldwide before hanging up its web shooters.
For years, though, the highest-grossing Spider-Man title actually went to Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3… ironic because, arguably, that’s the worst entry in a multi-film franchise. Raimi’s last Spider-Man film tried to shoehorn in the fan-favorite villain Venom (Topher Grace), when Raimi really only wanted to focus on Sandman (Thomas Hayden Church). The uneven franchise capper still made boatloads of money, but its previous record total of $890 million was surpassed by Spider-Man: Far From Home. All hail the new king!
Now the focus falls to whether or not Spider-Man: Far From Home can become the first Spidey movie to cross $1 billion at the box office, and with the new film sitting at $970M, that milestone seems inevitable. That’s a monumental accomplishment for a hero who some complain has been through too many iterations, and borders on fatigue.
What can be attributed to the movie’s success? Well, I’m chalking it up to Tom Holland’s portrayal of Peter Parker. He’s the most accurate and engaging Peter we have seen on screen before. And Sony has surrounded him with a winning cast of supporting talents. Also, the addition of Jake Gyllenhaal as Mysterio was a home run, and Far From Home proved to be the type of movie that benefits from a repeat screening, thanks to some twists and reveals.
The bottom line, though, is that “Marvel fatigue” is a myth. Coming off of the massive success that was Avengers: Endgame – a superhero behemoth that’s now the highest-grossing movie of all time – fans continued to flock back to theaters and support Spider-Man, helping the hero set his own personal record. Spidey didn’t make Endgame numbers, but no movie makes Endgame money. Like, ever. Until Avatar 2 rolls around.
If you are a big time Spider-Man fan, you may want to grab tickets to Spider-Man: Far From Home before he leaves theaters, because there was no mention of a third MCU Spider-Man movie in the Phase Four announcements made by Kevin Feige at San Diego Comic-Con. We don’t have an idea of when we will see the wall-crawler on the big screen again, so enjoy him now, while he’s here!
