Five days after “Avengers: Endgame” became the highest-grossing film of all time, Sony announced that the Marvel crossover’s follow-up, “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” became the first “Spider-Man” film ever to gross $1 billion worldwide.
In a year dominated by Disney, Sony has now yielded the one 2019 blockbuster hit to come from a different distributor. And ironically, that was made possible by the deal the studio made with Disney and Marvel Studios to bring Peter Parker into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While Sony does have “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” in theaters starting this weekend, the $329 million domestic gross for “Far From Home” currently accounts for half of the $657 million Sony has grossed in North America this year.
And when you include the $82 million grossed since New Year’s Day by the Oscar-winning, non-MCU “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” Spidey’s share of Sony’s annual domestic total grows to a staggering 62%. It’s little wonder why Sony has heavily invested in the Marvel superhero as their main tentpole franchise, with titles like “Morbius” and sequels to “Spider-Verse” and “Venom” coming in 2020 and beyond.
China is the top overseas market for “Far From Home” with $204 million grossed, the second-highest total every grossed by a Sony film behind the $269 million earned by “Venom.” Other top markets include South Korea with $56 million and the U.K. with $36 million.
On Sony’s all-time box office list, “Far From Home” has passed “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” to become the studio’s second-highest grossing film ever. It needs approximately $100 million more to pass the studio record set by “Skyfall” with $1.1 billion in 2012. On the domestic side, “Far From Home” will pass the domestic total earned two years ago by its MCU predecessor “Spider-Man: Homecoming” before starting to pass the domestic totals earned by the original “Spider-Man” trilogy directed by Sam Raimi. “Spider-Man 3” would be the first film it would pass, as it grossed $336 million in 2007.