Amidst the “movie theatres are super spreader events” narrative comes the fact that 20 million American went to see “Spider-Man: Far From Home” over the weekend. The superhero flick racked up an astonishing $253 million at the domestic box-office, easily catapulting it to the top of the overall 2021 box-office.
“Spider-Man: No Way Home‘“ nabbed the fourth best opening of all-time, right behind “Avengers: Endgame,” “Avengers: Infinity War” and “The Force Awakens.” It has surpassed 2021 reigning champion “Black Widow” by close to $100 million. Unheard of. Simply impressive.
Now, it’ll be interesting to see where cinemagoing goes from here in the next few weeks, there is most definitely a desire to watch tentpoles in theaters and the male under 35 demographic seems less scared by the virus than other demos. The NIH are claiming there could be up to a million daily cases a day come the thick of the American winter. 2022 films are starting to get delayed and rescheduled etc. Will Spidey have legs? Unless movie theatres start to shut down again, I think it easily has a shot at clearing the $400 million mark.
A study came out a few weeks ago claiming that movie theatres are a “relatively safe environment” to be in during COVID.