It's been a long time, but Sony is back to making great Spider-Man movies.
"Spider-Man: Homecoming," the latest reboot by the studio of the legendary Marvel superhero, took in an impressive $15.4 million at Thursday preview screenings, according to The Hollywood Reporter. This gives the movie a good chance for it to have an opening weekend of $100 million domestically, or more.
The Thursday figure is the third-highest of the year, only "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" ($17 million) and "Beauty and the Beast" ($16.3 million) did better. Both of those movies went on to have domestic opening weekends north of $150 million: $146.5 million for "Guardians" and $174.7 million for "Beast."
The only other movie so far in 2017 to hit the $100 million mark its opening weekend is "Wonder Woman" ($103 million).
"Homecoming" certainly has the weapons to get near the openings "Guardians" and "Beast" had, as Sony is releasing the movie on over 4,000 screens, and 392 of them are IMAX. Also helping the movie will be its great word of mouth, as it has a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Tom Holland plays Spidey, who goes up against Michael Keaton as Vulture in this latest look at the comic book legend, which brings the story back to the character's high school days. This is the first time Sony and Marvel Studios have teamed up on the character (Sony previously went at it solo).
The previous version of Spider-Man, starring Andrew Garfield in the role, did not live up to the high standards his predecessor Tobey Maguire set.
Garfield's 2012 "The Amazing Spider-Man" only opened at $62 million (and went on to take in $757 million worldwide). The sequel in 2014 opened at $91 million ($708 million worldwide). These figures didn't cut it for a studio pushing out a blue chip IP.
It's looking like this time around, Sony is back on track.
