Sony's 'Spider-Man' wins weekend again, enters all-time top 10
A new year starts at the box office, but a familiar story - Spider-Man: No Way Home (SONY
-0.4%) dominated theater receipts for the third weekend in a row and entered some lofty historical company.
The biggest post-pandemic hit added $52.7 million in North America to cross $609 million in domestic grosses.

That's enough to make it the No. 10-grossing domestic film of all time, inching past The Incredibles 2's $608.6 million. And with little serious competition showing up for a couple of weeks, at its current pace, it's looking to move past No. 9 Star Wars: The Last Jedi at $620.2 million and No. 8 The Avengers and its $623.4 million.
On a worldwide basis, Spider-Man: No Way Home is 12th biggest of all time, hitting $1.37 billion and passing Black Panther on that list.
Last week's non-Spider films brought up the rear and tried to add to their business: No. 2 was animated musical Sing 2 (CMCSA
+0.6%), which drew $19.6 million to bring its cumulative total to $89.7 million, and No. 3 was action-spy sequel The King's Man (DIS
+0.8%), with $4.5 million.
Those came in ahead of the sophomore weekends for American Underdog (LGF.A
+3.1%, LGF.B
+3.8%), with $4.1 million, and The Matrix Resurrections (T
+3.3%), with just $3.83 million.
Theater owners had reason to cheer Spider-Man giving a lift (however late) to 2021's box office, and kicking off 2022 with a bang.
Cinema tickers today: AMC Entertainment (AMC
-1.5%); Cineworld (OTCPK:CNNWF
+0.4%); Cinemark (CNK
+6.0%); (IMAX
+6.3%); Marcus (MCS
+1.2%); Reading International (RDI
+3.3%); Cineplex (OTCPK:CPXGF); National CineMedia (NCMI
+8.2%).
IMAX (IMAX
+6.3%) noted that thanks to the web-slinging hero, it closed out its best fourth quarter since 2017 - grossing $277 million for that period, with $83 million attributable to Spider-Man: No Way Home. The company's full-year grosses reached $638 million, a 146% gain over 2020.
CEO Rich Gelfond also notes that at least 10 releases on the 2022 calendar are "Filmed for IMAX" or include IMAX-exclusive expanded aspect ratio, including Top Gun: Maverick, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, among others. Check out some of the anticipated hits for 2022.