LOS ANGELES, June 5 — Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Sony’s newest chapter in the webslinger series, soared to North American box office domination in its weekend debut, Sunday estimates showed, cementing the resilience of one of Hollywood’s biggest superhero juggernauts.
The animated offering featuring the voices of Shameik Moore, Haille Steinfeld and Issa Rae netted a cool US$120 million domestically for the Friday-through-Sunday period, and another US$88 million internationally, according to industry watcher Exhibitor Relations.
“This is an exceptionally good opening for an animation follow-up sequel,” said analyst David A. Gross, adding the sequel has an “entirely fresh” look and is an example of “inspired commercial filmmaking”.
The film picks up the story of half-Black, half-Latino Miles Morales, using an eye-popping blend of decades-old 2D comic book drawing techniques with the latest computer-generated visual effects.
Spidey dethroned Disney’s live-action version of The Little Mermaid, which raked in a similar amount in its debut the previous weekend and followed up with US$40.6 million.
The remake of the 1989 animated tale of an underwater princess who gives up her voice in pursuit of true love on land stars pop singer Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric, and Melissa McCarthy as the villainous Ursula.
The Boogeyman debuted in third with US$12.3 million. The 20th Century Studios horror/mystery feature is the latest in a long line of films adapted from a Stephen King book, and one of its producers shepherded the hit show Stranger Things onto the small screen.
Slipping one spot to fourth was Disney’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 which added US$10 million to its cumulative worldwide total of some US$780 million.
Universal’s action film Fast X, part of the Fast & Furious franchise, held fifth spot, earning US$9.2 million.
Rounding out the top 10 were:
The Super Mario Bros Movie (US$3.3 million)
About My Father (US$2.1 million)
The Machine (US$1.7 million)
You Hurt My Feelings (US$770,000)
Kandahar (US$765,000) — AFP
