Across the Spider-Verse’ Crushes At the Box Office

The new ‘Spider-Man’ movie went gangbusters at the box office this weekend — hauling in a bundle … and proving that having 2 studio parents for this IP might actually be best.

Of course, we’re talking about “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” … which took the top spot by a mile over the past three days — with a final tally of about $120.5 million in ticket sales domestically. That’s the 2nd best box office of 2023 … behind ‘Super Mario Bros.’

It’s easily the money-maker of the summer thus far … and the good news is that it exceeded expectations by a ton. ‘Across the Spider-Verse’ was projected to bring in just $80M-$90M … but it blew well past that, and lands as one of the best-performing ‘Spider-Man’ flicks ever.

Not just that, but the reviews are off the charts … with many calling it the best ‘Spider-Man’ installment and ‘Spider-Man’ story told in modern times. So, what do we make of all this???

There’s a couple takeaways — which Twitter seems to somewhat agree with — and the first is … Sony holding on to some of the ‘Spider-Man’ rights over the years has, perhaps, turned out to be for the best. Clearly, they partner with Marvel for all things Spidey … but many say they’ve kept the character/IP grounded, despite Disney’s overly-grand CBM aspirations.

The other fascinating element here is that Sony/Disney has been able to achieve true diversity in a character that has long been considered a typical white male in Peter Parker.

With the Miles Morales character — who’s Black/Puerto Rican — there’s a new face to Spider-Man (not to mention all the other Spider-Men in the movie) … and there was little to no outrage over it. Of course, a lot of that might have to do with the fact that Miles and co. are comic canon … so shout out to the writers who created these characters a long time ago!

It’s interesting … there’ve been a number of actors who’ve played Spider-Man (both live-action and animated) over the years — but Tom Holland says Shameik Moore‘s Morales might, in fact, be the best out of all of them. He said as much anyway in a recent interview.