It's pretty much always a big occasion when a major superhero movie arrives in theaters, as these comic book adaptations still tend to be the biggest of big blockbusters Hollywood has to offer. Case in point, Sony's "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" just notched the second-biggest opening weekend at the box office in 2023 thus far, trailing only "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" ($146.3 million), which is the biggest video game movie ever — by a considerable margin. What's more, the animated sequel did something so immensely rare that it is difficult to find comparisons.

"Across the Spider-Verse" opened to $120.5 million, easily taking the top spot on the charts this past weekend, dethroning Disney's "The Little Mermaid" ($40.6 million), per The Numbers. That represents an absolutely massive increase over 2018's "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse," which opened to $35.3 million on its way to a $375.5 million global finish. What we're seeing is a near-unheard-of 3.41 multiplier from the opening weekend of the original to the sequel. That's downright remarkable. To be clear, this simply does not happen. While sequels can gross more than their predecessors, an increase of this size is dizzying.

The only comparison I could find that was in the same ballpark is Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight," which opened to $158.4 million in 2008, after "Batman Begins" debuted to $48.7 million in 2005. So yeah, that's some pretty good company to be in. In more recent history, "John Wick: Chapter 2" making about double what the original "John Wick" made was about as impressive as it gets. The fact that "Across the Spider-Verse" is now poised to make what the original made worldwide during its entire run in a matter of weeks? Stunning.

How High Can Miles Morales Fly?

So, how did this happen? Why did this happen? For one, "Into the Spider-Verse," which introduced the world at large to the Miles Morales version of Spider-Man, has widely regarded as one of the finer superhero movies ever made, and the audience for that film has grown by orders of magnitude since its original release. Those people were all eager to actually see the sequel in theaters this time around. The other crucial part here is that both critical and audience reception have generally been through the roof (read our review here). Even in the face of relatively stiff competition, this multiverse of Spider-People simply could not be ignored.

Another somewhat underrated factor in all of this is the animation element. As we saw with "Mario" (which has now made $1.3 billion worldwide and counting), moviegoers are downright starved for animated features right now. That's why "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish" managed to have such an unbelievable run at the end of 2022 through the first quarter of 2023. Sony capitalized on that in a big way with "Across the Spider-Verse," and this is probably just the beginning.

Internationally, the film opened to $88.1 million, and there are still plenty of territories left to open over the coming weeks, including Japan and South Korea. A $208.7 million global opening against a reported $100 million budget is stellar no matter what. Given the audience increase from the previous installment? It's downright spectacular. The even better news is that this is just part one of a two-part saga, with "Beyond the Spider-Verse" hitting theaters next year. That being the case, the third entry could do even bigger business. But let's not get too ahead of ourselves. For now, Sony gets to take a well-deserved victory lap.

And The Rest…

Moving on. The weekend's other big release was the Stephen King adaptation "The Boogeyman," which opened to a decent-but-not-great $12.3 million domestically and $7.7 million internationally for a $20 million start. Let us not forget: this movie was originally supposed to debut directly on Hulu. So really, anything it makes is gravy because Disney was going to have to market this thing with or without a theatrical release. And that theatrical release will ultimately draw more attention to the eventual streaming release. The competition proved to be an issue here but Disney still did the right thing.

Elsewhere, "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" held strong pulling in another $10.2 million, bringing its total to $780 million worldwide. It now is a lock to at least pull in $800 million before all's said and done, which makes this an absolute win for James Gunn and Marvel Studios. Rounding out the top five was "Fast X," which added $9.24 million to its total and has amassed $603 million worldwide. That's a dame fine number but that $340 million budget looms impossibly large.

Looking ahead, we've got another big one this upcoming weekend in the form of "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts." Will the robots in disguise have enough gas in the tank to take the top spot away from Spider-Man? That's the big question.

Top ten movies at the box office June 2 – 4, 2023

1. "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" – $120.5 million

2. "The Little Mermaid" $40.6 million

3. "The Boogeyman" – $12.3 million

4. "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" – $10.2 million

5. "Fast X" – $9.24 million

6. "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" – $3.35 million

7. "About My Father" – $2.1 million

8. "The Machine" – $1.75 million

9. "You Hurt My Feelings" – $769,814

10. "Kandahar" – $765,000

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