SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME (which is freakin’ fantastic, by the way, if you’re one of the few people who hasn’t seen it yet) just broke all the rules. Second biggest opening in cinematic history, biggest ever December opening, biggest ever opening for a Sony film. And the pandemic? Fuggeddabowdit! The most optimistic prognosticators had suggested the movie might, might, reach $200 million. It hit $260 million. Before that, no movie during the pandemic had even broken a hundred million at the domestic box office. And SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME shattered even pre-pandemic records. This was a massive achievement no one saw coming. And it bodes very well for movie theaters and for a certain movie starring a certain living vampire.
I’d given up on seeing MORBIUS. I facetiously and bitterly began to refer to it as the movie that doesn’t really exist, because it had gotten delayed so many times, its release put off more and for longer than any other movie during the pandemic. When Omicrona hit the news I figured that was it. Sony would yank their movie from the schedule yet again. While that could still happen, it’s looking a lot less likely now. Spidey proved that audiences will go to the movies, ‘Rona be damned, if it’s a movie they want to see, providing the studio with the assurance it needs that MORBIUS will make bank. As we only have to wait another month, the odds that MORBIUS will actually appear in theaters this time are promising.
