Skip to main content

Spider-Man: No Way Home swings to a huge preview night

Last weekend, the Thursday through Sunday box office champion, West Side Story, opened with just over $10 million, but now Spider-Man: No Way Home has come to save the day at the box office with one of the biggest Thursday preview nights ever. No Way Home brought in $50 million on Thursday, according to Deadline.

For context, the highest Thursday preview of the pandemic era was Black Widow‘s $13 million. No Way Home not only smashed that mark, but it ranks as the third-highest preview night of all-time. Only Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Avengers: Endgame had bigger Thursday previews with $57 million and $60 million, respectively. When combined with Friday’s estimated $50 million in ticket sales, No Way Home has a real shot of reaching a combined $100 million “opening day.”

Recommended Videos

AMC Theaters is also reporting that No Way Home has set a new mark for the strongest Thursday preview in December in AMC’s storied history. AMC estimates that 1.1 million people saw No Way Home in AMC theaters across the United States. That estimate doesn’t include the number of people who saw the flick at other movie chains. Endgame is the only film that surpassed that mark in April 2019.

How did Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios achieve this feat? It helps to have one of the most popular superheroes in the world. Since Spider-Man’s debut in 1962, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s iconic creation has been Marvel’s flagship character. The first Spider-Man movie set the stage for modern comic book blockbusters in 2002 with a domestic total of $403 million. It remains the highest-grossing Spider-Man movie to date, domestically. However, Spider-Man: Far From Home was the first Spidey film to clear $1 billion worldwide.

Tom Holland in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

It’s also not a coincidence that all of the 2021 Marvel-related movies rank near the top of this year’s box office charts. Black Widow, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and even Eternals put up impressive numbers. But none of those characters come close to Spider-Man’s popularity among hardcore fans and the general public. There were also certain surprises in No Way Home that drove a lot of the buzz in the weeks and months ahead of its release.

Another major factor in No Way Home‘s huge preview night is that it wasn’t really a night at all. A few weeks ago, No Way Home fans caused Fandango and other advance ticket sites to crash when tickets went on sale. To accommodate the demand, AMC and other theater chains started showing No Way Home in the early afternoon. They also cleared the majority of the other movies out of their theaters for the night, so Spider-Man’s latest adventure could have as many showings as possible. That’s why it became the first movie since Endgame to come close to those heights.

Now that audiences know what to expect from No Way Home, it will be interesting to see how high the weekend numbers play out.

Blair Marnell
Blair Marnell has been an entertainment journalist for over 15 years. His bylines have appeared in Wizard Magazine, Geek…
How will Spider-Man 4 reinvent The MCU’s webslinger?
Spider-Man panicking in "Spider-Man: Far From Home."

Tom Holland's fourth Spider-Man film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of 2026's most highly anticipated blockbusters. Spider-Man: No Way Home set a high bar for the titular hero back in 2021, making fans wonder how Marvel Studios will follow this movie and whether or not it will succeed in theaters.

Though the wait has been long and confusing, Marvel Studios has finally found director Jon Watts's replacement in Destin Daniel Cretton, and filming for Spider-Man 4 is set to commence in the summer of 2025. With so much hype built around this fourth solo film, one can only imagine how the story could change the MCU's Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.
Will Spider-Man lead the new Avengers?

Read more
Spider-Man 4 cast adds Stranger Things star Sadie Sink to Tom Holland MCU movie
Sadie Sink stands outside of a trailer in Stranger Things.

Spider-Man 4 is turning to Hawkins, Indiana, for some star power. Stranger Things actress Sadie Sink has been cast in Spider-Man 4.

Per Deadline, Sink joins a cast that includes Tom Holland, who returns as Peter Parker.
Sink's role is expected to be "significant." Though her role has not been specified, some theories tie the actress to the X-Men. Jeff Sneider reported in December that Sink is being considered to play Jean Grey in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Because of Sink's red hair, the actress could potentially play a version of Mary Jane Watson. All of these casting rumors remain unconfirmed.
Sink is best known for playing Max Mayfield on Netflix's Stranger Things. Sink recently wrapped production on the fifth and final season, which arrives later this year. Sink can be seen in O'Dessa, Hulu's post-apocalyptic musical streaming on March 20.
The X-Men are coming to the MCU sooner rather than later. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige revealed that the "Mutant Era" has begun, thanks to Deadpool & Wolverine. Grey is a significant character in the X-Men, so introducing her in a story with Spider-Man makes some sense.

Read more
Marvel and Sony’s Spider-Man 4 has a new release date
Zendaya and Tom Holland in "Spider-Man: No Way Home."

Last fall, Marvel Studios and Sony confirmed that Spider-Man 4 will be coming in summer 2026. However, there's been a slight change in plans. While the original release date for the next Spider-Man was July 24, 2026, it's now been pushed back to Friday, July 31, 2026.

No official reason was given for the change, but The Hollywood Reporter noted that this will give Spider-Man 4 some additional breathing room from Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, which is slated to arrive on July 17, 2026. Tom Holland is actually going to be in both movies, but the extent of his role in Nolan's film has yet to be revealed. Holland has been the MCU's Spider-Man since Captain America: Civil War in 2016, and he's also starred in a wildly successful trilogy of Spider-Man films.

Read more