Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has broken a 2023 record set by the runaway hit The Super Mario Bros. Movie. The Spider-Verse movie, which premiered in theaters on June 2, is a follow-up to the 2018 animated hit Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature that year. The sequel follows Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) as he begins an all-new adventure in the multiverse where he meets even more iterations of himself, who all must team up against a dangerous new villain.
Per Deadline, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is set to have a smashing opening weekend way above its initial projections of $80 million. With a $51.7 million Friday, it scored the best opening day of 2023 so far, even more than the record-shattering Super Mario Bros. Movie, on its way to a projected $113 million 3-day gross. This would more than triple the opening weekend of the original Into the Spider-Verse, which grossed a $35 million opening weekend before its total run of $375 million worldwide.
Can Any Future 2023 Titles Compete With Across the Spider-Verse?
While the Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse box office is unlikely to match The Super Mario Bros. Movie's overall opening weekend of $146 million, this opening day record is still huge. Being in competition with Mario in any capacity is an outstanding achievement considering that movie's impact on the 2023 box office. If Spider-Verse can get even a fraction of the Nintendo movie adaptation's $1.2 billion gross, it will still greatly exceed its 2018 predecessor.
While the year is only just about half over, there are still quite a few big titles in the wings that could potentially break the new opening day record set by Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. It could potentially even be bested this month by Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny on June 30, though the Harrison Ford-led movie's franchise-low Rotten Tomatoes score may impact its chances.
Other titles that could challenge Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse's opening day crown likely won't come until this Fall. This November sees the releases of both The Marvels and the Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, two massive franchise tentpoles, followed in December by Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. While any of those movies could have the juice to outdo that opening day, Spider-Verse could very well go unchallenged for quite a long time this year.
Source: Deadline
