As Spider-Man: No Way Home Crosses $1 Billion At The Box Office, The Matrix Resurrections Struggles In Its Opening Weekend

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The hybrid release model may have hurt the Matrix movie's box office.

As expected, Jon Watts' Spider-Man: No Way Home has continued to dominate at the box office. The Marvel blockbuster not only annihilated all previously existing theatrical release records going back to the start of the pandemic in March 2020, but  it also had the second biggest opening of all time, and it just keeps adding big numbers to its global total. Unfortunately, what's good news for the web-slinger is bad news for Lana Wachowski's The Matrix Resurrections, which is struggling big time on the big screen.

Check out the full Top 10 chart for the weekend below, and join me after for analysis! 

Spider-Man: No Way Home Weekend Box Office December 24-26, 2021

TITLE    WEEKEND GROSS    DOMESTIC GROSS    LW    THTRS

1. Spider-Man: No Way Home    $81,500,000    $467,331,855    1    4,336
2. Sing 2    $23,760,000    $39,405,000        3,892
3. The Matrix Resurrections    $12,000,000    $22,500,000        3,552
4. The King’s Man    $6,350,000    $10,009,631        3,180
5. West Side Story    $2,800,000    $23,915,766    3    2,810
6. Licorice Pizza    $2,327,000    $3,665,819        786
7. A Journal For Jordan    $2,200,000    $2,200,000        2,500
8. Encanto    $2,000,000    $88,277,840    2    2,800
9. Ghostbusters: Afterlife    $1,235,000    $120,460,060    4    1,728
10. Eternals    $218,000    $164,500,534    7    360
 

Spider-Man Took A Big Weekend-To-Weekend Dip, But It Also Hit A Massive Milestone

As far as percentage drops go, the news for Spider-Man: No Way Home isn't really all rosy, as an $81.5 million haul represents a 69 percent drop from its opening weekend – but when you're talking about numbers this big (especially after the last two years) it's hard to focus on the negative. After all, had the MCU film only debuted with that number, it will would still rank as the second best opening weekend of 2021 behind the $90 million made by Andy Serkis' Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Cate Shortland's Black Widow would still hold third place, having made $80.4 million in its first three days back in July.) 

The domestic gross for Spider-Man: No Way Home has grown over $467 million, which is particularly huge when you note that it is now the first film since the start of the pandemic to have made over $1 billion worldwide. And not only will it continue to make money in all of the markets in which it is currently playing as we move into January 2022, but the blockbuster is also still waiting to get its release date in China.

Jon Watts' Spider-Man: Far From Home made nearly $200 million when it played in the Asian nation back in 2019, and there is every possibility that the sequel will be able to match that number or maybe even do better.

When Spider-Man: No Way Home does start playing in China, it will only create more distance between itself and the rest of the big box office blockbusters out of Hollywood this year. Two Chinese films – Dante Lam, Chen Kaige, and Tsui Hark's The Battle at Lake Changjin and Jia Ling's Hi, Mom – presently occupy the number two and three slots in the ranking of 2021 worldwide grosses, and they are followed by Cary Joji Fukunaga's No Time To Die ($771 million) and Justin Lin's F9 ($721 million).

Suffice it to say, Spider-Man: No Way Home's performance is unprecedented compared to every other big screen release we've seen in the last 21 months .By the end of its run, it will be fascinating to see how its numbers compare to the past successes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (overall, it is presently the 10th highest grossing title in the franchise).