It looks like Sony has finally found the Spider-Man that works best for them. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse had a successful preview night last night, putting it on track to be a decent earner this holiday season.
According to Deadline, the new animated feature earned $3.5 million last night, crushing the other new film of the day, the Peter Jackson-produced Mortal Engines. Despite playing on 2,600 screens, Mortal Engines only earned $675,000, which is extremely rough when you consider the movie’s budget was somewhere between $100 million and $150 million.
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It’s likely Spider-Verse will continue to make money, especially since it’s getting rave reviews across the board. Currently, the film has a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is scores better than Mortal Engine‘s current 29% rating. In fact, our very own Chris Killian gave Spider-Verse a five out of five rating, calling the film “pure exhilaration,” “vibrant,” and “smooth.”
Deadline projects that the film will make between $30 million and $40 million this weekend, which could make it the box office winner of the week. However, the film is in for some hefty competition next week when Mary Poppins Returns is released on December 19th, followed by the release of Aquaman on December 21st.
The website went on to compare Spider-Verse to Warner Bros’ LEGO Batman, which makes sense since they’re both standalone features about the animated version of a character who also exists in a separate, live-action universe (movie-making is crazy, huh?). Spider-Verse is already showing better numbers than LEGO Batman, however, which earned $2.2 million on its preview night back in 2017.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was directed by Peter Ramsey, Robert Persichetti Jr., and Rodney Rothman, who also co-wrote the film with its producer, Phil Lord.
The movie follows multiple versions of the friendly neighborhood hero, including the iconic Peter Parker (voiced by Jake Johnson). The main Spider-Man of the story is Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore), who who was created by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Sara Pichelli for Marvel Comics back in 2011.
The animated feature also stars Hailee Steinfeld (Gwen Stacy), Mahershala Ali (Uncle Aaron), Liev Schreiber (Wilson Fisk), Nicolas Cage (Spider-Man Noir), John Mulaney (Spider-Ham), Kimiko Glenn (Peni Parker), Lily Tomlin (Aunt May), Brian Tyree Henry (Jefferson Davis), and Luna Lauren Velez (Rio Morales).
Catch all of the animated spideys in theaters now!