Hollywood on Sunday got an answer to the question of whether people would return to the cinema to see a big-budget blockbuster during the pandemic.
Spider-Man: No Way Home, the latest instalment in the Marvel superhero franchise, opened to a pandemic-era record $253m in the US at the weekend.
It was the third-biggest opening in history and the largest since coronavirus struck early in 2020, according to studio estimates.
The figures, which immediately made the movie the top-grossing film of the year in the country, marked a stunning success for Sony Pictures.
Internationally, the studio estimated that Spider-Man drew in a further $334.2m from 60 overseas markets, lifting its total haul so far to $587.2m.
Demand to see the movie was particularly noteworthy given the surge of Covid-19 cases across the world over the past week, demonstrating that people were prepared to travel to the cinema at a time when streaming has become the de facto option for millions.
Unlike many films released this year, Spider-Man was released solely in cinemas, meaning that fans who wanted to see the Zendaya and Tom Holland-led film had to do so in person.
Rivals like Disney and Warner Brothers have, by contrast, used many of their blockbuster releases to stoke demand for their streaming services, releasing titles including Dune and Black Widow online at or near the same time they debuted in cinema.
Spider-Man received glowing reviews from critics, and the blockbuster weekend figures may bolster the confidence that studios and cinema-owners have for in-person viewing, which some believed had been permanently altered by the pandemic.
“This weekend’s historic Spider-Man: No Way Home results, from all over the world and in the face of many challenges, reaffirm the unmatched cultural impact that exclusive theatrical films can have,” said Tom Rothman, chief executive of Sony Pictures’ motion picture division.
The movie shot past the highest grossing film in the US since the pandemic first reached the country’s shores: Disney’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which has earned $225m this year.
The US opening trailed only the debut weekends registered by Avengers: End Game ($357m) and Avengers: Infinity War ($258m), the Disney superhero movies released in 2019 and 2018, respectively.
Spider-Man was also a hit at Imax, drawing $36.2m globally across the large-format auditoriums.
The film caps a relatively fallow year at the multiplex for Hollywood, even though receipts have climbed roughly 82 per cent from 2020 to $4bn, according to ComScore. Major releases, including the well-reviewed West Side Story remake by Steven Spielberg, have disappointed at the box office.
Theatrical releases often generated more than $11bn a year in the US before the pandemic.
Hollywood will get its next test of cinema-going appetite in the coming days with the release of the latest Matrix movie.