“Spider-Man: Homecoming” Could Soar to $100 Million in Its Opening Weekend
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Spider-Man: Homecoming |
$105 million |
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Despicable Me 3 |
$34 million |
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Baby Driver |
$15 million |
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Wonder Woman |
$10.7 million |
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Transformers: The Last Knight |
$7 million |
Should all go according to plan at the box office this weekend, Spider-Man: Homecoming will become the fourth movie of the year to crack $100 million in its opening weekend. While the studio’s prediction for the film’s opening is far less generous, coming in around $80 million, it’s more likely that they’re simply hedging their bets and the film will do much better than that. Also, of course, because it’s a superhero film backed by Marvel (their first venture with Sony) and audiences are hungry for fresh, fun romps at the theater (fatigue may be starting to set in, but we’re also still willing to take a chance on things that look interesting). The three movies to open with more than $100 million so far this year are Beauty and the Beast ($174.7 million), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 ($146.5 million), and Wonder Woman ($103.2 million). It will also be some much-needed energy, like what Baby Driver brought last week, to a mostly lackluster summer so far.
As the third iteration of the web-slinging Marvel hero, there’s a lot riding on this film, both in terms of the independent character and his future as well as his involvement in the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has already begun (Captain America: Civil War was his first appearance) and is set to continue (Tom Holland’s take on Peter Parker will also appear in Avengers: Infinity War). It won’t be the biggest opening for a Spider-Man movie, that honor still belongs to Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 in 2007 ($151 million) and Spider-Man in 2002 ($114.8 million), but it’ll be better than either of The Amazing Spider-Man‘s openings, and a good start to this new Spider-Man adventure.
In terms of reception, Homecoming is so far receiving plenty of attention from fans (just look at its social media stats) and rave reviews from critics (a solid 93 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, on par with Wonder Woman‘s 92 percent and Doctor Strange and Captain America: Civil War‘s 90 percents, with the latter two opening at $85 million and $179 million, respectively). While it’s easy to wonder whether or not fans are ready for a third Peter Parker in just 15 years, he was a breakout hit in Civil War and it’s clear from estimations and talk that there’s nothing but excitement surrounding this film. Perhaps there’d be more pessimism clouding this film if it weren’t for Civil War, but fans have already warmed to Holland’s take on the webslinger, and so it should be a good weekend for the film.
Opening Weekend | Current Gross | Facebook Likes | Tweets | |
Spider-Man: Homecoming | N/A | N/A | 20,707,784 | 278,656 |
Despicable Me 3 | $72.4m | $107m | 101,439 | 65,029 |
Baby Driver | $20.5m | $41.7m | 18,425 | 163,886 |
Wonder Woman | $103.2m | $356.6m | 22,975 | 222,323 |
Transformers: The Last Knight | $44.6m | $111m | 40,119 | 98,227 |
The rest of the weekend will consist of mainstays in precisely the order you expect. The third Despicable Me film will see a significant drop (at least in terms of animated films, which typically do better week-to-week than this film likely will) in its second week. Given the film didn’t open as strongly as it was expected to, and well below the rest of the films in the franchise (save for the first film, but that’s usually a given), it’s not as much of a surprise that Despicable Me 3 is going to see a drop of more than 50 percent. So far, the film is at $107 million domestically and just under $250 million worldwide, which is at least a couple hundred million below the rest of the franchise’s films and making unlikely this third installment will prove the franchise still has some energy left.
Continuing its success, Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver is eyeing a drop of far less than 50 percent in its second weekend and in fact will probably drop more around 25 or 30 percent, which is impressive in and of itself. It initially opened to $20.5 million over the three-day weekend, which increased to $29.9 million when the entire holiday weekend was said and done. Currently, the movie’s made $41.7 million domestically and $48 million worldwide, which is a good start for a film with a $34 million budget and an original premise that audiences are clearly excited about and will hopefully put more original films in theaters.
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Rotten Tomatoes | IMDb | Metacritic | ||
Critics | Users | Stars | ||
Spider-Man: Homecoming | 93 | N/A | 8.3 | 73 |
Despicable Me 3 | 61 | 65 | 6.5 | 48 |
Baby Driver | 97 | 91 | 8.4 | 86 |
Wonder Woman | 92 | 91 | 8.0 | 76 |
Transformers: The Last Knight | 15 | 51 | 5.3 | 28 |
As has been the story for the last several weeks, Wonder Woman will continue to do well this weekend and, once again, drop less than 50 percent. It’s currently a $356 million domestically and $720 million worldwide. While its theater run is coming to a close, it won’t make it to Batman v Superman‘s $873 million worldwide total, but it should surpass Suicide Squad either this weekend or next, as it continues to sit as the most successful DC film domestically. Finally, the latest Transformers film, The Last Knight, which has been out for three fewer weeks than Wonder Woman, is preparing to go out with a whimpe at the domestic box office by bringing in less than $10 million in only its third weekend. Still, at $450 million worldwide, its foreign numbers continue to do well but even with those, without the domestic numbers to buffer it, its worldwide total will suffer and show the Transformers franchise is losing its steam.
Widening indie films like The Beguiled and The Big Sick should also make it into the top ten this weekend, with plenty of buzz still surrounding them both.
(Sources: boxoffice.com, boxofficemojo.com, rottentomatoes.com, imdb.com, metacritic.com. Tweets and Likes represent figures for this week only. Figures represent numbers at time of writing, and may have changed. Tracking Board does not report Rotten Tomatoes user ratings for movies that have not yet seen wide release.)
Anya Crittenton | Associate Editor