"Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" Opens to $120.5 Mln, Second-Highest Debut of 2023

“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” opened to $120.5 million in the U.S. domestic box office debut. 

The movie land the second-biggest opening weekend of the year, behind only “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” with $146 million, as well as the third-biggest opening weekend for any “Spider-Man” movie.

Sony’s animated sequel is benefitting from great reviews and positive word-of-mouth, as well as goodwill from its predecessor, 2018’s Oscar-winning “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” 

Audiences awarded the movie an “A” CinemaScore while critics bestowed it with a 95% average on Rotten Tomatoes. 

Ticket sales were significantly higher than the first movie, which introduced audiences to Miles Morales and the idea that “anyone can wear the mask” and opened to just $35.5 million. But it proved to have enduring appeal and stuck around in theaters for a while, ending its run with $190 million in North America and $384 million globally.

“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” grossed another $88.1 million from 59 territories in its international box office debut, led by China with $17.3 million. That brings its worldwide total to $208.6 million to start.

Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson directed the PG-rated “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”, which cost $100 million. 

The project is the second movie of the two-part sequel to 2018’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”. It is set to have 240 characters, explore 6 different universes, and has had roughly 1,000 people working on it.

"Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" follows Miles Morales, (voiced by Shameik Moore), the protagonist of the original movie as he groups up with Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac), “Spider-Man 2099” and Spider-Gwen aka Spider-Woman (Hailee Steinfeld).

The rest of the voice cast includes Brian Tyree Henry, Issa Rae, Jason Schwartzman, and Daniel Kaluuya.

The sequel sees Morales swinging into the Multiverse where he encounters a team of Spider-People. The team has been charged with protecting the existence of the Multiverse.

Though it becomes a sticky situation as the Spider-People clash on how to handle a powerful super-villain. Miles is left to redefine his definition of a hero.

The third movie has already been announced, "Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse", releasing on March 29, 2024. Both upcoming films' villain is said to be The Spot (Jason Schwartzman).

The runtime of the sequel clocks at 2 hours and 20 minutes. It runs for almost half an hour longer than its predecessor - which had a duration of 1 hour 56 minutes - and becomes the longest major animated film by a Hollywood studio ever.

"Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" breaks the record for the longest animated movie beating out current title-holder 2012's "Consuming Spirits", which has a duration of 2 hours and 16 minutes.