Sony/Marvel Studios’ “Spider-Man: No Way Home” has easily taken its fourth straight weekend at No. 1 at the box office, adding $33 million to bring its domestic total to $669 million.
That puts Sony’s highest grossing film ever just $4 million away from passing “Avengers: Infinity War” for the No. 5 spot on the all-time domestic box office charts. The film has also now joined the top 10 all-time list worldwide with a global total of $1.53 billion despite not having a release in China, passing the totals of “Furious 7” and “The Avengers” to take the No. 8 spot. The No. 7 spot belongs to the 2019 remake of “The Lion King” with $1.66 billion.
If “No Way Home” stays No. 1 for one more weekend — which it is favored to do against Paramount’s “Scream” — it will join “Avatar” and “Black Panther” as the only films since the turn of the century to take No. 1 for at least five weekends. “Black Panther” led the charts for five weekends in 2009 as it amassed $700 million in its domestic run, while “Avatar” led the charts for seven weekends en route to becoming the highest grossing film of all time. (Note: this does not include 2020 when thousands of theaters were closed and only a few major studio films attempted a theatrical release).
The sole wide release this weekend is Universal’s “The 355,” which has misfired with an opening of just $4.8 million from 3,145 theaters. The $40 million spy thriller was panned by critics with a 27% Rotten Tomatoes score, and though audiences were somewhat more positive with a B+ on CinemaScore, it is extremely unlikely that the film will be able to leg out.
On a brighter note for Universal, “Sing 2” has continued to perform well despite the omicron variant surge, taking second on the charts above “The 355” with $11.3 million in its third weekend and a domestic total of $109 million. That makes the Illumination sequel the first animated film since the pandemic began to cross the 100 million domestic mark.
It’s a notable achievement considering that “Sing 2” was released right as the omicron surge started in the U.S. and shows that while there’s still a long way to go for family turnout at theaters to get to pre-pandemic levels, there’s still a baseline for how family animated films with wide appeal can perform despite the challenges of COVID. Still, with omicron bringing new uncertainty over how COVID-19 and its many variants could affect moviegoing this year, Disney decided on Friday to pull Pixar’s “Turning Red” from theaters and instead release it on Disney+ in March.
20th Century’s “The King’s Man” and Lionsgate/Kingdom’s “American Underdog” complete the top 5, with “The King’s Man” earning $3.3 million from 3,040 theaters in its third weekend and “American Underdog” earning $2.4 million from 2,729 theaters. The long-delayed “King’s Man” now has a total of $25 million domestic and $49 million worldwide, while the modestly-budgeted “American Underdog” has a domestic total of $18.7 million.