“Spider-Man: Homcoming” Swings into First Place

By Kip Mooney • On • In Weekend Box Office Report Weekend Box Office Report 0

BOX OFFICE REPORT

July 7-9, 2017

(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)

TOP 5

Spider-Man: Homecoming  $117.0 million
Despicable Me 3 $33.9 million
Baby Driver $12.7 million
Wonder Woman $10.1 million
Transformers: The Last Knight  $6.3 million

Even though Tom Holland is the third actor in 15 years to play your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, that didn't seem to matter to audiences at all. This latest reboot – produced by original studio Sony but with access to actors from the Marvel Cinematic Universe – took in an estimated $117 million. That's the third-biggest debut of the year, better than any of the Andrew Garfield films, and better than all but one of Tobey Maguire's (2007's record-breaking but disappointing Spider-Man 3). Reviews have been mostly solid, with many critics citing how fun the film is, which not every superhero movie has these days. It should hold well, and may even beat both Andrew Garfield movies overall, but the $350 million-plus that all three Tobey Maguire films made might be out of reach.

Despicable Me 3 fell a not necessarily despicable 53 percent, which puts it on track to finish at the bottom of the franchise. Still, Universal likely isn't worried given the series' worldwide appeal and endless marketing and tie-in potential. (Minions. Minions everywhere.)

The real success story – besides Wonder Woman, which is still holding strong at No. 4 – is Baby Driver, which dropped a mere 38 percent in weekend two. It's now Edgar Wright's highest-grossing movie by far, soon to be by double any of his previous efforts. It's a right place-right time-great movie combination, which so rarely happens. Hopefully this will put Wright back into high demand, this time with studios willing to let his amazing brain control the whole story, not studio executives. Transformers: The Last Knight continued to crater, taking in a dreadful $6.3 million. It's made $100 million less domestically than its production budget and Age of Extinction had made by this point. Ouch.

Outside the top 5:

  • This Weekend's Indie Champ: A Ghost Story, David Lowery's haunted romance that earned raves at Sundance. The secretly shot drama averaged a whopping $27,017 on just four screens.
  • The Big Sick is a big hit. The real-life romantic comedy took in $3.6 million on only 325 screens, beating out movies playing on three times that many.
  • The Beguiled is also a sultry summer surprise. Sofia Coppola's remake has made $7.4 million in just three weeks, besting much of her other work.

Next weekend:

War for the Planet of the Apes closes out Fox's surprisingly great reboot trilogy. I think it will split the difference between Dawn and Rise, taking in about $60 million, which will put it in a photo finish with Spider-Man: Homecoming.

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About Kip Mooney

Kip Mooney
Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.

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