Spider-Man: No Way Home Breaks The Multiverse With Staggering $253 Million Opening Weekend

Sony's "Spider-Man: No Way Home" has been breaking hearts and records this weekend. The third installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's "Spider-Man" movies managed to rake in a colossal $253 million in domestic box office earnings opening weekend. 

This far exceeds the projected $130-$150 million that the film was expected to gross during its debut; in fact, "No Way Home" had already earned $120 million on opening day, making it the first pandemic-era release to earn over $100 million in one weekend, and the only film to swing past that goalpost in a mere day.

Per Variety, Peter Parker's tour of Europe in "Spider-Man: Far From Home" has apparently raised his profile worldwide (or maybe it just raised Night Monkey's profile), because Spidey has similarly taken the rest of the world by storm. "No Way Home" has already grossed $334.2 million in international markets, bringing its global total to $587.2 million. Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group chairman and CEO Tim Rothman made this statement in celebration of the movie's success:

"This weekend's historic 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' results, from all over the world and in the face of many challenges, reaffirm the unmatched cultural impact that exclusive theatrical films can have when they are made and marketed with vision and resolve."

These numbers mean that "Spider-Man: No Way Home" has scored the third-largest domestic opening of all time, behind two other MCU movies: "Avengers: Endgame" ($357 million) and "Avengers: Infinity War" ($257 million). It has also usurped another superhero movie that previously held the number 1 spot for the most successful Covid-era box office debut. Prior to the unprecedented success of the latest "Spider-Man" film, "Venom: Let There Be Carnage" managed to generate $90.1 million during its opening weekend, meaning that "Spider-Man: No Way Home" has topped that record nearly three times over.

This success is particularly notable as "Spider-Man: No Way Home" was released exclusively in theaters during a time where many are opting to stay home and stick to streaming services as a matter of personal safety and public health. Still, it seems that some things are deemed worth the risk, as Marvel fans clearly turned out in record numbers to make the third Tom Holland-led Spider-Man movie the highest grossing film of the last two years, beating out every release of both 2020 and 2021. 

"Spider-Man: No Way Home" is in theaters now.