Spider-Man: Homecoming has been a massive hit at the box office, far exceeding expectations this past weekend both in North America and across the pond in many international territories. Domestically, the reboot has earned an impressive $117 million to date, while its overseas haul helped the movie tally up an amazing cume of $257 million. Not bad, right?
As a result of that, and the success of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 earlier this year, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has now made over $12 billion at the worldwide box office (the specific number is $12.028 billion). There is, however, a bit of a catch.
Spider-Man: Homecoming may be set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but because Sony Pictures holds the rights to the wall-crawler, neither Disney nor Marvel will earn any of the $257 million from the movie’s opening weekend. In fact, they won’t be earning anything at all from the film’s theatrical run. They will, however, make a boatload of cash from their merchandising rights, so don’t feel too bad for them. After all, that’s a huge part of why Marvel and Sony came to a deal in the first place.
The latter reportedly spent upwards of $140 million on marketing, so Spider-Man: Homecoming being this successful perhaps shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. Despite that, you have to believe that the MCU setting, not to mention the inclusion of Iron Man, helped the reboot in a big way and this $12 billion figure is a huge win for Marvel.
With Thor: Ragnarok on the horizon and Avengers: Infinity War coming next year, along with many other big releases, you’d best believe that it won’t be too long until the studio reaches another benchmark. For now, though, we can all celebrate the fact that Spidey is back where he belongs and his latest outing has proven to be a smashing success.