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Until just a few weeks ago, Spider-Man: No Way Home was set to face Spidey nemesis Morbius at the box office this weekend. Sony decided to push its “SSU” (Sony’s Spider-Man Universe) film starring Jared Leto back to April, and nothing has come to fill the vacated slot. Without any new wide releases, the webslinger will have yet another weekend where it rules the box office. After reclaiming the top spot from Scream last weekend, the MCU film is set to have its fifth number one weekend, a feat only a few films in recent decades have achieved.

He’s back…and it didn’t take very long for his return either. A week after getting bumped from the top spot at the domestic box office by the latest Scream installment, Sony’s Spider-Man: No Way Home retook first place in its sixth weekend in theaters, racking up $14.1 million in receipts. Not bad for a movie that’s already been around for a month and a half. Meanwhile, there were two new wide releases over the weekend…not that anyone would notice. Universal’s faith-based romance, Redeeming Love, snuck into fourth place with a $3.7 million debut while the mothball-scented historical fantasy, The King’s Daughter, was finally unspooled after sitting on the shelf for seven years and proceeded to belly-flop into eighth place.

Two new wide releases open this weekend, but we are looking at another weekend dominated byScream and Spider-Man: No Way Home. The face-off between the two franchise films has animated an otherwise quiet January, and while Scream swiftly displaced Spidey from the top spot last weekend with a steady lead at $30 million compared to $20 million, this weekend’s rematch could be a close one. Spider-Man, going into its sixth weekend, has seen drops in recent weeks of around 40%, and another similar drop this weekend would put it around $12 million. That’s right where Scream would be at with a 60% drop, so this weekend’s number one could go in either direction. With no new wide releases slated for next weekend, expect another rematch for the top spot.

After a full month atop the charts and a string of shattered box-office records in its wake, Spider-Man: No Way Home was finally toppled from its box-office throne over Martin Luther King Jr. weekend. The culprit: A reboot of (or sequel to, take your pick) the seemingly dead-and-buried Scream horror franchise, which seemed to gasp its last breath after the disappointing Scream 4 just over a decade ago. With returning stars Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette, the fifth Ghostface meta-chiller, simply titled Scream, scared up $30.6 million during its opening weekend and is projected to earn $35 million by the time the Monday holiday is factored in.

After four weeks of total dominance at the box office, Spider-Man: No Way Home finally faces some solid competition from the legacy slasher franchise Scream. Scream, the fifth installment in Wes Craven’s self-aware horror series, is the biggest new release of the month now that Morbius has vacated its late January release date, and it will likely topple Spider-Man’s winning streak. That is not to say it won’t be another big weekend for No Way Home, though, which by Friday should become the fifth biggest domestic grosser ever and by next weekend should hit the number four spot.

Buffeted by bad reviews and bleak box-office predictions, the star-studded female spy thriller, The 355, never really stood a chance against Spider-Man: No Way Home—not even in the blockbuster’s fourth weekend in theaters. Even so, Universal’s globe-trotting espionage flick fell short of expectations, pulling in a paltry $4.8 million in its domestic debut. Meanwhile, Peter Parker and company continued their miracle run at the multiplex, not just taking the top spot again with ease (thanks to its $33 million North American haul over the weekend), but also continuing their assault on the record books, where the Tom Holland tentpole became the sixth highest-grossing film of all time at the domestic box office and the eighth-biggest worldwide.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and 2021 represented a tale of two box offices. On one hand, we are witnessing a dream run from Spider-Man: No Way Home, currently the eighth highest grossing film of all time in the U.S. after just three weeks, and that is despite its release coinciding with a massive wave of Covid-19 cases due to the hyper transmissible Omicron variant. Spider-Man reminded us that all time blockbuster grosses are still possible after a summer and fall season where the biggest successes all had Covid asterisks attached to them.

In like a lamb and out like a lion. That saying pretty much sums up 2021 at the box office. After an unpredictable twelve-month period of peaks and valleys in the theatrical movie business due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the year ended on a triumphant note thanks to Sony’s mega-blockbuster, Spider-Man: No Way Home. Adding another $52.7 million to its coffers over New Year’s weekend, the superhero tentpole soared past the $600 million mark in North America, making it the tenth-highest grossing movie domestically of all time, helping to push the year’s total box-office numbers up significantly from 2020—but still a long way off from the pre-pandemic good old days.

It was a Merry Christmas and then some for Peter Parker as the skyscraper-swinging superhero’s latest adventure, Spider-Man: No Way Home, soared past the $1 billion barrier at the global box office in just its second week of release. That makes Sony’s smash hit not only the fastest blockbuster to accomplish that ten-figure feat since 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but also the first billion-dollar grosser worldwide since the pandemic began.But while Spidey was busy fighting crime (and raking in loot), the holiday’s slate of new releases—Sing 2, The Matrix Resurrections, The King's Man, American Underdog, and A Journal for Jordan—were left to divvy up the box-office leftovers with varying degrees of success. A week after becoming the first film of 2021 to rake in more than $100 million in its opening frame, No Way Home continued to rule the multiplex, crossing the billion-dollar benchmark in a mere 12 days. That pace puts the film in some pretty elite company—only two films have reached $1 billion in receipts faster: 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War and 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. But Spidey’s feat is especially impressive considering what’s going outside of theaters this winter, as the Omicron variant of COVID-19 continues to spread like wildfire. But apparently that appears to be just one more foe that Spidey doesn’t mind going up against.

This past weekend saw box office records getting shattered left and right as Spider-Man: No Way Home scored the second highest domestic opening of all time, taking the box office beyond merely being “good for the pandemic.” In one weekend it became the year’s top grossing film in the U.S. and the sixth highest worldwide, and by the end of the year it may very well become number one. While Spider-Man will continue to reign at the box office for a number of weeks (it just took home the third best Monday gross ever), the slew of films big and small opening this week promises something for everyone, and the Christmas frame won’t be entirely dominated by the webslinger.

Christmas arrived a week early for Peter Parker as his latest web-slinging adventure, Spider-Man: No Way Home, shattered records at home and abroad, pandemic be damned. Box-office watchers knew going into the frame that Tom Holland’s third standalone outing as the Marvel superhero would be big, the only question was how big? Well, the answer is…absolutely massive. In its debut weekend, the Sony tentpole raked in $253 million in North America and another $334.2 million from overseas, putting its mind-blowing bow at $587.2 million worldwide—the third-biggest global debut of all-time, trailing only the two most recent Avengers outings.

2021 has been a rocky year at the box office, but it is all set to end on a high note. Despite the disappointing returns of the last two weekends, which were the lowest grossing since September, the next two weekends may very well become the year’s biggest. Leading the charge and gearing to break pandemic-era box office records is Sony’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, swinging into theaters in the prime pre-Christmas slot.

Steven Spielberg’s razzle-dazzle reinterpretation of the classic Broadway musical-turned-Best Picture winner, West Side Story, hit a flat note with ticket-buyers, pulling in a lackluster $10.5 million at North American box office over its opening weekend despite being one of the best-reviewed films of the year. As older moviegoers continue to steer clear of multiplexes during what is shaping up to be another long COVID winter, the 20th Century Studios title’s dismal debut is an ominous sign for titles aimed at grown-ups heading into Oscar season. Meanwhile, the frame’s only other rookie wide release, STX Entertainment’s National Champions, was dead on arrival, entering the charts well below the Top 10.

Despite a strong Thanksgiving weekend at the box office, last weekend suffered from a lack of new content and had the weakest box office performance since the doldrums of September. The post-Thanksgiving slump will soon come to an end, though, and the year should end on a high note with titles such as Spider-Man: No Way Home, The Matrix Resurrections, Sing 2, Nightmare Alley, and The King's Man. Next weekend will likely break pandemic-era box office records, but this weekend is looking more modest with only one major new release, Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of the Broadway and film classic West Side Story.

Even if you didn’t have a calendar, you’d know it was December. How? Because this weekend the box office felt a lot like that old holiday tale where not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse. With no major new releases hitting multiplexes there wasn’t a lot of movement on the charts, as Disney’s family-friendly Encanto once again finished in the top spot with a $12.7 million haul in its sophomore session. Consider it the quiet before the storm—what with West Side Story, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and The Matrix: Resurrections all ready to be unwrapped in the coming weeks.

After a busy Thanksgiving weekend which saw a solid-for-2021 $142 million five-day gross, things are taking a bit of a breather this weekend. The only new wide release is Focus’ specialty film Wolf, which is unlikely to displace any of last week’s box office winners. Expect a repeat of last weekend with Encanto, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and House of Gucci remaining in the top three, and we’ll see how well they hold as we await some of the year’s most anticipated films in the coming weeks. West Side Story, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Nightmare Alley, The Matrix Resurrections, and other big ticket holiday and award season films are just around the corner and will hopefully bring the pandemic-era box office to new heights.

The nation’s multiplexes were as crowded as Thanksgiving tables as four new releases battled for a piece of the box-office pie over the five-day holiday weekend. As expected, Disney’s latest animated offering, Encanto, won the festive frame, debuting in the top spot with a $40.3 million bow. Meanwhile, United Artists’ star-studded House of Gucci entered the charts in third place with $21.8 million and Screen Gems’ Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City finished in fifth with $8.8 million as Paul Thomas Anderson’s buzzy indie, Licorice Pizza, set a new pandemic-era specialty-release record with a supersized $84,000 per-screen-average.

Despite a strong showing from Ghostbusters: Afterlife last weekend, it has been a relatively quiet November since Eternals opened big the first weekend of the month. Things are looking to pick up this long Thanksgiving weekend with three promising new theatrical exclusive wide releases, and the box office will likely be back above $100 million for the three-day after two weekends of falling under.

Turns out there’s still some life left in those proton packs after all. Following a poorly received, all-female reboot in 2016, Sony’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife slimed the competition at the pre-Thanksgiving box office this weekend, debuting to a much stronger-than-expected $44 million domestic haul. Meanwhile, Warner Bros.’ Will Smith-led awards-hopeful, King Richard, stumbled out of the gate, bowing in fourth place with an underwhelming $5.7 million as the Joaquin Phoenix heartstring-puller C'mon C'mon soared in limited release.

The Ghostbusters are back this weekend in Ghostbusters: Afterlife, opening in 4,300 theaters including IMAX and other large screens. It is the fourth film in Sony’s franchise and a direct sequel to the first two films, disregarding the 2016 reboot. Afterlife is a family affair, being written and directed by Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air), whose father Ivan Reitman directed Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II and is producing Afterlife. Even the story keeps it the family, focusing on the grandchildren of O.G. ghostbuster Egon Spengler, who was played in the original films by the late Harold Ramis. The cast is headlined by Paul Rudd, Finn Wolfhard ("Stranger Things"), Carrie Coon ("The Leftovers", Fargo"), and Mckenna Grace (Gifted, Annabelle Comes Home), but the real treat for fans is the return of the old gang as the film brings back Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts.