Latest Spider-Man flick smashes box office records in Southern Africa

Marvel fans came out in their numbers to watch Spider-Man: No Way Home, which not only broke box office records in the United States but in Africa as well.

The new Spider-Man film by Marvel Studios and Sony premiered on the big screen last Friday and earned them a whopping R20 million in Southern Africa.

Sony Movies South Africa said this is the biggest opening weekend ever for one of their movies in Southern Africa.

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Spider-Man: No Way Home is the third stand-alone film for Tom Holland’s run as Peter Parker.

Zendaya Coleman also returned as Michelle “MJ” Jones.

The storyline continues picks up where the sequel Far From Home ended. Spider-Man’s identity has been revealed and he is no longer able to separate his normal life as Peter Parker from the risky life of being a superhero. He asks for help from Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and the stakes then become even more dangerous, forcing him to discover what it truly means to be Spider-Man.

Third biggest opening ever in America

Spider-Man: No Way Home scored the third-biggest domestic opening of all time, taking in an estimated $253 million in its massive North American weekend opening.

Box office watchers are spinning hopeful predictions, with analysts eyeing it as the pandemic era’s first potential billion-dollar-grossing film.

Its box office sales trail only 2019’s Avengers: Endgame ($357 million) and the previous year’s Avengers: Infinity War ($258 million), according to the BoxOfficeMojo website. Spider-Man easily surpassed early estimates of $130-150 million.

The new superhero blockbuster is well on its way to earning $600 million overseas, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported on Sunday. And this comes as theatres continue to battle their way back from months-long Covid-induced closures.

“This is an incredible opening,” David A. Gross, who runs Franchise Entertainment Research, told AFP.

While most big series struggle to keep their momentum, he added, “‘Spider-Man is exploding.”

Analysts, however, are warning that the industry’s recovery still has a long way to go, especially amid fears of a new surge in coronavirus cases fueled by the Omicron variant.

Compiled by Sandisiwe Mbhele, additional reporting by AFP