With movie-goers thronging cinemas for “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”, the animated film notched up a robust $120.5 million on its domestic opening weekend, making it the second-highest debut of the year.
Trailing only “The Super Mario Bros” movie, which bagged $146 million, the film’s box office performance exceeded the predictions by Sony Pictures Animation and BoxOffice Pro, which estimated the film to gather between $75 million and $115.5 million over the initial three days of its U.S. and Canada release.
The predecessor, “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” harvested over $35 million in its first three days post-release in December 2018 and walked away with the Oscar for the best-animated feature film. Its sequel, “Across the Spider-Verse,” premiered on June 2 and harvested triple the earnings in its opening weekend.
During the Los Angeles premiere, producer Amy Pascal revealed that the Spider-Verse saga would continue to expand. “You’ll see all of it,” she confirmed to Variety, hinting at the development of potential live-action Mile Morales and Spider-Woman films. “It’s all happening.”
Grossing $208.6 million globally, according to Comscore, the film stirred speculation about its Oscar chances. The movie received a sterling 95% rating from critics and an exceptional 96% from audiences on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Surpassing the ‘rotten’ rating of 59% from film critics for Universal Pictures’ “Super Mario Bros,” Spider-Man ties the audience score of 95% for the video game-inspired movie.
In a season of box-office successes, “Across the Spider-Verse” continues to elevate the stature of animation films, pushing the boundaries of storytelling and technical brilliance. With the promise of more from the Spider-Verse universe, fans are poised for an exciting cinematic journey ahead as they eagerly await to see their favourite web-slinging heroes swing back into action.
