‘Spider-Man’ Opens to $253 Million This Weekend, Changes the Movie Business

There are a few weekends that changed the course of the movie business.

One was June 20-22, 1975, when Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” invented the wide-release blockbuster.

Another is December 12-17, 2021, when “Spider-Man-No-Way-Home-2021-movie-posters/”>Spider-Man: No Way Home” opened to $253 million domestic — and Spielberg’s “West Side Story” dropped 68 percent in its second weekend, to gross $3.4 million.Sony’s Marvel movie is the savior film to answer theaters’ prayers.

For now, its outstanding performance saved the exhibition business.

With the biggest opening weekend since “Endgame-2019-movie-posters/”>Avengers: Endgame” set the opening record in April 2019, “No Way Home” proves beyond doubt that an audience will race to theaters for for certain films.Here’s the rub.

With $357 million, “Endgame” represented 88 percent of the total box office, with another $45 million from other titles; no new releases wanted to compete on that weekend, or the one before it.

This weekend, “Spider-Man” provided 92 percent of the total, with just $22 million from other titles.

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