Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse vs. Guardians of the Galaxy 3: After the Fourth Weekend, and Into the Fifth

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is proving a rare instance these days of a sequel significantly outdoing its predecessor--performing, as one observer had it, more like a regular, live-action superhero movie with a comparison of Guardians of the Galaxy 3 making the point. Spider-Man opened a little bigger--with a gross of almost $121 million to Guardians of the Galaxy 3's $118 million--and afterward actually widened its lead, such that it has in the subsequent three weekends generally stayed 5 percent ahead of where the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel was at the same point in its trajectory. (Thus as of last weekend Spider-Man had $317 million grossed, against the $300 million that Guardians of the Galaxy had managed as of its own fourth weekend.)

Moreover, going by Boxoffice Pro's projection--the movie's taking in $340 million by Sunday--would mean this continuing, the movie still about 5 percent ahead of Guardians of the Galaxy 3 in its fifth weekend (by which it had grossed just $323 million). The fact that the weekend is another holiday weekend would seem likely to add to its edge, boosting its gross to $346.5 million by its 34th day in release (as against Guardians' $326 million at the same point), working out to a 6 percent margin of difference.

All that being the case, even with Guardians of the Galaxy 3 benefiting from surprisingly strong holds late in its run (which will see it triple its opening weekend gross this weekend, and finish up in the vicinity of $360 million) it still seems easy to picture Spider-Man edging it out at the end. Given that Guardians of the Galaxy 3 seems likely to be the highest-grossing live-action superhero movie of the year (especially given the debacle The Flash proved to be, and the questionable prospects of Captain Marvel 2 and Aquaman) I still expect the animated Spider-Man film to be the highest-grossing superhero movie of 2023 domestically. (The global winner in the stakes is another matter, given that Spider-Man, if doing better than its predecessor internationally, has just not caught on abroad the same way--though I will be revisiting that matter in an upcoming post.)