Though this was the lowest grossing weekend of 2022 thus far, there is much to take away from this snow-filled box office.
Coming in first place yet again, is the worldwide mega-hit “Spider-Man: No Way Home” with a gross of $11 million. This is only a 21.5% drop from last weekend, which is incredible for a film in its seventh week of release. The third Tom Holland “Spider-Man” film has now climbed to $735 million domestically, which is only $25 million behind “Avatar.” “No Way Home” has now made $1.7 billion worldwide, being the first film to do so without being released in China. Ultimately, I think “Spider-Man” will close just north of “Avatar,” probably around $765 million domestically and around $1.85 billion worldwide. That being said, if it is able to be released in China, it will likely become the 6th movie ever to clear $2 billion worldwide.
Just to put the box office run of “No Way Home” into perspective, the next highest grossing film during the pandemic domestically was “Shang-Chi” which grossed $224 million. “Spider-Man” has grossed over 3x the amount of the next highest movie, which is absolutely insane. On a worldwide perspective, the next highest grossing movie of the pandemic was the Chinese release “Battle of Lake Changjin” which made virtually all of its $902 million gross in China. “Spider-Man” is going to likely double the gross worldwide of its next closest competitor. If you choose to compare it to just other Hollywood releases, the next closest film worldwide was “No Time to Die,” which made just north of $774 million. “Spider-Man” is going to make over $1 billion more than the next closest Hollywood movie. Though the pandemic is still raging, “Spider-Man” has shown that the box office is back. The next major test for the box office’s vitality will be “The Batman” which releases in early March.
In second place, just like last weekend, is the horror film “Scream” coming in with a $7.35 million gross, now clearing $62 million domestically. This 40% drop from last week is incredible for a film of its genre, as slasher movies tend to exhibit high week-to-week drops. This bodes quite well for the film’s final domestic total, which I expect to be a bit above $80 million.
Coming in third is “Sing 2” which exhibited another fantastic drop this weekend, falling only 16.5% to make $4.8 million. This pushes the animated picture to $134 million domestically. The film doesn’t seem like it’s going to run out of steam any time soon, soI believe it can close right around $150 million.
In fourth and fifth place, just like last week, are “Redeeming Love” and “The King’s Man” grossing $1.85 million and $1.75 million, respectively. Unfortunately for “Redeeming Love” it had the biggest drop of the weekend, falling 47.6%, which doesn’t bode well for its remaining legs. “The King’s Man” was just the opposite, having one of the lowest drops, falling only 1.6%. Though “The King’s Man” has been largely a box office disappointment, it does seem like it has some late life.
Ultimately, this weekend was not the most interesting because there were no new releases. That is not the case in this upcoming first weekend of February.
Next weekend we will see the release of the disaster film “Moonfall” and the comedy film “Jackass Forever.” Both these films will likely gross between $15-$20 million, though those numbers could fluctuate up and down depending on their respective reception.
The good news for all of us is that we made it through January, which is usually the driest of the box office months. As the weather starts to heat up, so does the box office, so there is much to look forward to the rest of this year.