The latest installment in The Adventures of the Spider-Man made the third best release in North American history with revenue of $ 253 million over the weekend, according to provisional estimates by specialist firm Exhibitor Relations released on Sunday .

This is much more than the forecasts of the specialists, who counted on 150 million dollars.

It's also the best release ever made by Sony studios, according to the Deadline website.

Sony is the last big mainstream Hollywood studio that doesn't have its own video-on-demand platform, and Spider-Man's success looks all the more spectacular.

"It's an extraordinary output," said expert David A. Gross, from the specialist firm Franchise Entertainment Research, quoted by the journal Variety.

While most big movie series struggle to keep up, "Spider-Man is blowing up," he added.

The latest film in the saga is only surpassed by "Avengers: Endgame" ($ 357 million) and "Avengers: Infinity War" ($ 258 million) in the annals of best releases in the United States and Canada, according to the specialized site Box Office Mojo.

"Spider-Man: No Way Home" is the third film in which the hugely popular Spider-Man is played by British actor Tom Holland.

The previous episodes, where the red and blue suit was worn by Tobey Maguire then Andrew Garfield, had also broken the house at the box office.

The original "Spider-Man", in 2002, was the first film in cinematic history to exceed $ 100 million in revenue for its first weekend of exploitation.

Omicron in ambush

The story picks up where "Far From Home" left off in 2019, with a Spider-Man whose real identity, Peter Parker, is publicly revealed by the villainous Mysterio.

The high school student is desperately trying to return to anonymity with the help of another Marvel character, Doctor Strange, played by the no less popular Benedict Cumberbatch.

With these record revenues, the superhero signs the biggest success for a film since the release of the last episode of Star Wars in December 2019. It was before the coronavirus and no film has exceeded the 100 million mark since then. for its release.

But while American cinemas have recovered a bit this year, despite theater closures and restrictions, the film industry still has a long way to go to recover, especially with the rise of the Omicron variant.

And if 2021 is set to garner twice as much revenue as last year, the films of the year were not all successful.

Movies aimed at older viewers, like Steven Spielberg's remake of "West Side Story" released last weekend, have often flopped.

This New York "Romeo and Juliet" grossed $ 3.4 million this weekend by resuming the codes, music and history first performed on Broadway in 1957, making less than $ 18 million. dollars in revenue in two weeks.

Even the Marvel superheroes, whose latest films blithely exceeded $ 1 billion in admissions, have stalled.

"The Eternals", which will not remain in the annals of criticism, have thus collected only $ 70 million for their first weekend in theaters, a poor performance for this subsidiary of Disney.

© 2021 AFP