Box Office Mojo says “Spider-Man” is now at $1.536 billion. I specify the last two digits because I wonder at this point - more than wonder, I suppose - is if it could get to $1.7 billion. That was the figure projected by Deadline, which I frankly thought wasn’t probable (or possible, maybe) even though the movie has been doing so well. This obviously would make me absolutely wrong, which I concede.
I can only assume domestically the movie has enough momentum to get to the .6 portion, and that international could take care of the next $100 million. But I don’t know. If it hits 1.7, then the Deadline profit analysis of $600 million achieved in surplus would have a chance of occurring.
Right now domestically the film has $668 million. It obviously will start to slow down. The previous weekend was $33 million for a take. Now that I checked, it does look like maybe getting to .6 might be slightly harder than I anticipated, especially now that holidays are gone. But if Sony keeps this out for a long while, perhaps this will get there. Plus, we all know how studios will refresh marketing to achieve more gross at later stages like this (not that this film can try this out, but recall “Frozen” I believe doing a sing-along to get over whatever milestone was needed at the time).
Of course, one could argue that now - yes, maybe even now, or next weekend at latest - the film could move to physical/digital-transactional/digital-SVOD (yes, streaming). Who are we benefiting at this point…talent? Theaters? We do want to help out the latter, as the industry is important, so maybe keeping it in theaters a little while longer is a good-will gesture.
However, not really our choice. Sony has no streamer, and famously supports theatrical because of that. But could Sony, for itself, port the film over to its Playstation platform for a window? Surprised it doesn’t do something like that with its films in the past (to my knowledge, anyway).
DIS/Sony should strike a deal to bring the movie, right now, to P-Access on +, for $30. Just to get the data. Not sure how many at this point would pay for access…maybe older demos, or the family subscribers that supposedly are avoiding theaters? (One would assume families aren’t avoiding theaters based on “Spider-Man” performance, but then it brings up the question…why that announcement about the Pixar film bypassing theaters?..mainly a reason to support D+?..maybe the company figures with the second Pixar film coming out later in the year, “Lightyear” I think, it can afford to promote + signups and, as someone observed, save capital that would have been spent on marketing? I don’t know…)