Well, the change of pace was nice while it lasted, but Spider-Man: No Way Home has already reclaimed the top spot on the U.S. box office charts, proving that nobody—not a handful of legacy movie villains, not the Ghostface, and not Bono’s lion character from Sing 2—can beat the ol’ web-head. Maybe someone should try and make a movie with even more Spider-Mans than No Way Home has?
Anyway, as for the numbers, Spidey made $14 million, which is a big drop from when it was at the height of its spider-powers, but it has already made more than $720 million in the U.S. alone. It doesn’t need any more than that. (But it will surely make more, especially once it hits VOD and those of us who are too scared of COVID to see it in theaters can finally see what the fuss is all about.)
Scream, last week’s big winner, dropped nearly 60 percent and made $12.4 million for a grand total of $51 million after two weeks, which is already reportedly more than its budget (so that’s good news for them). After those two is Sing 2, a movie that there isn’t much to say about beyond the fact that we’d be talking about it a lot more if not for Spider-Man. This week’s total ($5 million) brought it to $128 million, which is higher than Ghostbusters: Afterlife, another movie with no Spider-Men but with some kid cachet.
In fourth we have church-y romance Redeeming Love, a movie our esteemed Film Editor A.A. Dowd said is a “kinky power fantasy in the halfway convincing disguise of wholesome faith-based entertainment.” It made $3.7 million in its debut. Then we have our weekly “Oh, You’re Still Here?” award, which goes to The King’s Man, a movie that has surely made as much money as it’s going to make now with a meager $1.7 million added to its total (only $30 million or so after five weeks).
Then it’s female-led spy movie The 355, church-y football movie American Underdog, long-shelved mermaid movie The King’s Daughter (only $750,000 and still in the top 10, as if we’re talking about the January 2021 box office). Finishing out the top 10 are West Side Story and Licorice Pizza, two movies that probably deserved to do better since they opened before Spider-Man, but oh well. Steven Spielberg and Paul Thomas Anderson are going to be fine.
The full list is available at Box Office Mojo, and you can see the top 10 list again in handy top 10 list format below if you’re a computer that just likes to see the titles rather than reading this playful analysis of them.
- Spider-Man: No Way Home
- Scream
- Sing 2
- Redeeming Love
- The King’s Man
- The 355
- American Underdog
- The King’s Daughter
- West Side Story
- Licorice Pizza