Spider-Man: No Way Home snares second-best opening day in box-office history

Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can — and what no other movie of the COVID era could.

Spider-Man: No Way Home has scored the second-biggest opening day gross in the history of the domestic box office, raking in a reported $121.5 million on Friday. That puts it ahead of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and behind only Avengers: Endgame for the best domestic opening day of all time. (That figure includes an estimated $50 million from Thursday preview screenings.)

No Way Home is now on track for an opening weekend gross north of $240 million, defying the growing concerns about the new Omicron coronavirus variant. It's already notched the biggest opening weekend since the pandemic began by a significant margin, easily besting the $90 million record set by Venom: Let There Be Carnage in October.

This record continues Marvel's dominance of the pandemic-era box office, landing No Way Home among the top 10 highest-grossing films of 2021. Disney's superhero-movie factory currently holds three of the top five spots on that list with Shang-Chi, Black Widow, and Eternals. Venom, which was produced and released by Sony, is also among the top five. (Unlike Venom, the Spider-Man films are produced by Marvel Studios and released through a special deal with Sony.)

No Way Home stars Tom Holland in his third solo film as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, as the web-slinging hero teams with Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange and goes up against a multiverse of villains from past Spidey flicks, including Alfred Molina's Doctor Octopus and Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin. The film has fared well with both critics and audiences, scoring a 99 percent positive audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

In her B+ review, EW's Leah Greenblatt wrote, "What seems at first like pure fan service turns out to be some of the best and by far the most meta stuff Marvel has done, tender and funny and a little bit devastating."

Spider-Man: No Way Home is playing exclusively in theaters nationwide.

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