‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ earned a promising $35 million this weekend.
‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ Sony
Up until very recently, the legacy of the animated theatrical superhero toon has been one littered with variations of defeat ( The Transformers Movie), devastation ( Batman: Mask of the Phantasm) and despair ( The Powerpuff Girls Movie). Yes, yes, Mask of the Phantasm is a modern classic, but I can vividly remember seeing it with a friend on Christmas day 25 years ago in a near-empty theater. Such was life before superheroes took over pop culture. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is turning out to be different, as it’s an acclaimed, big-budget and robustly-marketed superhero toon that’s at least trying to approximate the box office of the bigger (and bigger-budgeted) live-action brethren.
The spectacular animated fantasy, which isn’t an explicit spin-off from any existing Spider-Man movie or TV show, earned a superior $35 million over the weekend, which is an okay 2.77x weekend multiplier. It’s the biggest animated debut ever in December and out-grossed the lifetime total of Mask of the Phantasm ($5.7m in 1993), Transformers: The Movie ($6m in 1986) and The Powerpuff Girls ($12m in 2002) in one day. Heck, it topped the $29m lifetime domestic gross of Teen Titans Go! To the Movies in one weekend. The issue at hand, to the extent that it matters over the long holiday season, is that the superhero toon played more like a superhero movie than a toon.
The film features two Peter Parkers, Miles Morales (getting the cinematic spotlight at last), Spider-Gwen, Spider-Man Noir, Peni B.
