The deal with Disney to bring Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe is about to pay off big for Sony, as Columbia Pictures’ “Spider-Man: Homecoming” is on pace to earn a $120 million opening from 4,348 screens after bringing in a Friday total of $50.5 million, making it the seventh MCU film to earn a $100 million-plus opening.
If this number holds through the weekend, it would put “Homecoming” just over the original 2002 “Spider-Man” starring Tobey Maguire, which made $114.8 million in its opening weekend. It would also be the second-highest opening weekend in studio history for Sony, behind only the $151.1 million made in 2007 by “Spider-Man 3.” Independent trackers had a pre-weekend estimate of $90-110 million for this film.
Reception for “Spider-Man: Homecoming” has been record-setting, with its 94 percent Rotten Tomatoes score tying “Iron Man” for the highest score by any superhero movie. It is also the first “Spider-Man” film to score an A on CinemaScore, as the first two Maguire-led Spidey films posted an A- among audiences.
In second place is “Despicable Me 3,” which continues to perform well for Universal and Illumination with a $37 million second weekend, which keeps the drop-off from its $72.4 million opening below 50 percent. After nabbing the best opening weekend of 2017 so far for animated films, the threequel took advantage of the July 4 holiday to earn a $99 million five-day start. It currently holds a domestic cume of $126 million after a week in theaters.
Overseas, “DM3” scored an opening day total in China of $20.1 million, the highest for an animated film in that country. The film is now past the $300 million global mark, while Illumination has now passed $5 billion in lifetime grosses from the eight films it has made in its 10-year history. Almost $3 billion of that total has come from the “Despicable Me” franchise, including its 2015 spinoff, “Minions.”
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Sony’s other offering, TriStar/MRC’s “Baby Driver,” is tracking for a respectable $12.5 million second frame, a 39 percent drop from its opening weekend, which would give it a $56.6 million cume by Sunday’s end. It is now the highest domestic-grossing film of director Edgar Wright’s career and is on pace to pass the $80.5 million worldwide total made by his 2007 film, “Hot Fuzz.”
“Wonder Woman” continues to stay in the top five in its sixth weekend with an estimated $9.8 million total, pushing its domestic cume close to $370 million. The fourth-frame “Cars 3” and third frame “Transformers: The Last Knight” are left to fight it out for the No. 5 spot, with both films estimating to make around $5.7 million this weekend.