BOX OFFICE: SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME SETS TO CREATE FIREWORKS
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Last weekend was the third consecutive weekend in a row that saw the weekend box office perform below the same weekend in 2018 as the yearly box office is still around -9.5% behind last year’s totals. This week the weekend begins much earlier with the Tuesday release of Spider-Man: Far from Home and the Wednesday release of Midsommar as Sony and A24 attempt to get out ahead of the July 4 holiday, which can see grosses dwindle a little bit due to Fourth of July festivities and pre-holiday travel.
Looking to top the weekend box office is Sony’s release of Spider-Man: Far from Home, which is being sold as the final chapter in Marvel’s “Phase Three” and the beginning of “Life After Avengers”. The pic is jumping into over 4,600 theaters this Tuesday, which is far from a typical start at this time of year. There are few-to-no previous releases of this stature that have had a similar start and looking at releases such as 2007’s Transformers and 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man, both films released on the Tuesday ahead of the July 4 holiday, but both released on July 3, which means their respective $155.4 million and $137 million six-day openings aren’t exactly apples-to-apples comps given July 4 falls on Thursday this year.
With no preview showings last night, Far from Home began playing in 4,634 theatres today and Sony is anticipating an opening around $125 million for the film’s first six days, which seems quite conservative. Industry expectations are closer to $170-190 million for the six-day frame and we’re definitely within that range for a multitude of reasons. To begin, reviews have been almost entirely positive — 92% on RottenTomatoes and 69 on Metacritic — and online ticket retailer Fandango.com reports the film is out-pacing Spider-Man: Homecoming at the same point in the sales cycle.
If we were to look for a possible reason the film could come in on the lower end, the Spider-Man character has had a large presence on the big screen lately. Since the character’s introduction in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War he has been featured in a new film each of the consecutive years, including his own feature in 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming as well as the unrelated animated feature Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which just began streaming on Netflix last week. Is it at all possible the character has been just a bit too visible as of late, or have the small samplings of Tom Holland as Peter Parker in non-Spider-Man specific features only enamored the character to the audience further?
Caveats aside, Homecoming opened with an impressive $117 million back in July 2017 and should Far from Home deliver on the studio’s $125 million expectations we’re talking about only $8 million more over the course of three additional days (though the lack of preview showings does make it closer to two-and-a-half days). That’s a bit difficult to come to terms with and why we can’t forecast a performance that low, especially with a well-reviewed Marvel movie coming on the heels of the second largest worldwide release ever in Avengers: Endgame. That said, a look at IMDb page views are a bit lower than expected when compared to the likes of Ant-Man and the Wasp and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, not to mention the original picture that does have us lowering our expectations a bit.
Overall, we’re currently anticipating a six-day opening around $175+ million, with about $90-95+ million or so coming in the first three days, resulting in a three-day weekend around $80+ million. It’s also important to remember that no matter how the film opens, Homecoming enjoyed a 2.85x multiplier after its $117 million debut, which outperforms the 2.74x average for films in the MCU and is the seventh best in the 22-film franchise. Should Far from Home meet or top Mojo’s expectations it will be well on its way to strong domestic and worldwide runs.
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