The pandemic can’t stop Spider-Man as Spider-Man: No Way Home as the film scored big with a $50 million preview night, the third-best preview night ever, and the best preview night ever for Sony. It also easily beats out the pandemic record for Thursday night previews, Black Widow, which made $13.2 million. This also comes ahead of Sony’s previous Thursday night record-holder, Spider-Man: Homecoming, which made $15.4 million back in 2017. According to Deadline, the only other films with bigger Thursday night openings are Avengers: Endgame ($60 million) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($57 million).
Spider-Man: No Way Home is one of the most highly-anticipated movies ever so this number comes as no surprise even in a pandemic. When tickets went on sale, many of the ticket websites crashed as Spider-Man fans flooded the servers, trying to score a ticket for opening night. In addition to its big Thursday night, No Way Home is now projected for a $100 million Friday opening night and a $190-$240 million opening weekend.
So far, Spider-Man: No Way Home is not only a box office smash but also a smash with critics and audiences. No Way Home currently holds a 95% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes along with a staggering 99% from audiences. It seems like this could be the movie that could save theaters and AMC is certainly appreciating all of the business set to come for this weekend and the coming weeks.
“Needless to say, we are ever so happy to see a record-setting number of people returning to the cinema to capture the magic offered at AMC movie theatres,” said Adam Aron, AMC Chairman and CEO said in a statement. “Yesterday for its opening night, we hosted some 1.1 million guests to watch Spider-Man: No Way Home at our U.S. theatres. Our congratulations go to Sony Pictures for this wonderfully successful new movie.”
No Way Home lands in theaters starting today so get going to your nearest theater.
