Image Courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment/Marvel Studios

Saturday Update: Sony updates this morning with a $32.5 million Friday estimate on Spider-Man: Far From Home, lifting the Marvel Cinematic Universe sequel to a hefty $123.96 million domestic sum through its first four days of release.

Sony has increased its own projection to $176.58 million for the overall six-day debut through Sunday, although comparative models show even that could still be on the conservative end. For example, if Far From Home were to enjoy a similar 2.74x or 2.75x weekend multiplier from Friday as did Despicable Me 2 and The Lone Ranger, respectively, when the Fourth of July last fell on a Thursday in 2013, the Spidey sequel would net around $89 million for the three-day weekend — which would translate to more than $180 million for the six-day bow.

More optimistically, if FFH enjoys a similar weekend pattern as 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man (3.03x Friday’s gross), the current Spider-Man blockbuster would take in $98.5 million this weekend for a $190 million six-day total through Sunday. That kind of hold is on the table given the strong word of mouth behind FFH, although direct comparisons are cautioned against since the 2012 Spidey flick saw Fourth of July fall on Wednesday rather than Thursday — skewing moviegoing patterns, particularly given the rise of discount Tuesdays since then.

Sony has not provided an additional update on international grosses for FFH as of Saturday morning, but following yesterday’s update of reaching $310 million globally through Thursday and unofficial Friday estimates floating around, the sequel looks to be on course for a worldwide haul north of $550 million by Sunday’s end — with an outside shot at nearing $600 million.

Ultimately, the bottom line is this is a runaway success for Sony and Marvel Studios after capitalizing on the goodwill of Spider-Man: Homecoming two years ago, not to mention the halo effect of Disney’s Avengers: Endgame two months ago. Incidentally, this is a major boost to the summer box office after weeks of under-performers and busted tracking models. As it stands, Far From Home looks to be righting the ship on all fronts, and more standouts are likely to arrive in July and August.

Not to be forgotten this weekend is Toy Story 4, which added $11.9 million on Friday for a 15-day domestic haul of $284.2 million — 5.5 percent ahead of the pace of Toy Story 3‘s $269.4 million total through the same point.

Meanwhile, Midsommar continued its holiday debut with $2.22 million on Friday, coming to a three-day start of $6.57 million since its Wednesday opening.

Early weekend estimates are below with updated studio estimates to follow on Sunday.

Early Weekend Estimates (Domestic)

FRI, JUL. 5 – SUN, JUL. 7

WIDE (1000+) # TITLE WEEKEND LOCATIONS AVG. TOTAL WKS. DIST. 1 Spider-Man: Far from Home $88,500,000 — 4,634 — $19,098 $179,955,628 1 Sony / Columbia 2 Toy Story 4 $32,500,000 -46% 4,540 -35 $7,159 $304,757,544 3 Disney 3 Yesterday $10,000,000 -41% 2,614 11 $3,826 $36,132,740 2 Universal Pictures 4 Annabelle Comes Home $9,400,000 -54% 3,613 0 $2,602 $49,807,397 2 Warner Bros. 5 Aladdin $7,500,000 -26% 2,758 -477 $2,719 $320,689,616 7 Disney 6 Midsommar $5,800,000 — 2,707 — $2,143 $10,152,942 1 A24 7 The Secret Life of Pets 2 $4,300,000 -41% 2,846 -507 $1,511 $140,283,335 5 Universal 8 Men in Black: International $3,800,000 -43% 2,716 -947 $1,399 $72,154,949 4 Sony / Columbia 9 Avengers: Endgame $3,100,000 -49% 1,985 -40 $1,562 $847,862,833 11 Disney 10 John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum $2,100,000 -35% 1,493 -57 $1,407 $165,103,649 8 Lionsgate 11 Child’s Play $1,400,000 -68% 1,707 -1300 $820 $26,761,739 3 United Artists Releasing

LIMITED (100 — 999) # TITLE WEEKEND LOCATIONS AVG. TOTAL WKS. DIST. 1 Rocketman $3,800,000 -3% 850 -1153 $4,471 $90,194,715 6 Paramount Pictures 2 Dark Phoenix $415,000 -77% 426 -761 $974 $64,613,317 5 Fox 3 The Other Side of Heaven 2: Fire of Faith $250,000 -45% 179 -26 $1,397 $1,038,450 2 ArtAffects Entertainment 4 Anna $165,000 -89% 324 -1790 $509 $165,000 3 Lionsgate / Summit 5 Dumbo $65,000 -19% 103 -17 $631 $114,551,150 15 Walt Disney Pictures

Friday Update: Sony reports Spider-Man: Far From Home has tallied a strong $310 million globally thus far through Thursday, including $218.5 million in seven days overseas and $91.5 million after three days of domestic release. That domestic breakdown includes $39.25 million on opening day Tuesday, followed by $27.0 million on Wednesday, and another $25.2 million on Thursday’s Fourth of July holiday.

Although the studio continues to officially project $125 million for the domestic six-day start through Sunday, it’s clear at this point the MCU sequel will far exceed that with the entire weekend still ahead.

Further estimates and analysis to follow on Saturday morning.

Wednesday Report: The struggles of June’s box office are hopefully behind us as the calendar turns to July and one of the most iconic superheroes of all-time returns to the big screen in Spider-Man: Far From Home.

Sony will distribute the 23rd film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe this week, opting to get a jump start on the Fourth of July holiday corridor that’s delivered a number of box office hits in years past.

Our previous coverage of the film pointed to early tracking for a six-day opening around $200 million domestically, and despite the poor June market for theaters, we still think that’s achievable this week — although Sony is far more cautious in expecting around $125 million for the Tuesday-Sunday period, an understandable tempering of expectations in the current box office climate.

On Tuesday, the film opened to $39.25 million at 4,634 locations (the highest July location count ever) and topped 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man as the highest Tuesday opening day in domestic history. That previous film held the benchmark with $35.0 million.

It should be noted, of course, that Far From Home did not have the usual preview gross boost from the night before true opening day as most films do nowadays, so projections remain very much in flux at this stage.

In Spidey’s favor this week are the usual elements: critics have awarded the sequel a 93 percent Rotten Tomatoes score (among 219 reviews), and early audience polls stand at a strong 98 percent on the same site.

Moreover, the film is the first MCU release post-Endgame, and fans are anxious to see where the franchise goes from there. Given the direct lead-in and emotional arc of Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the last two Avengers films, Far From Home serves as the epilogue to what has been deemed as the end of Marvel’s third phase of films — and excluding online rumors, it’s still the last officially announced project from the studio, and the last Marvel pic audiences will see for another ten months.

One of the more apt comparisons in that frame of mind is the six-day start of Iron Man 3 in 2013, which earned $204.8 million (with no holiday or summer weekday boost) as the first MCU film to release after the record-breaking success of 2012’s The Avengers.

Beyond that, Tom Holland’s popularity as the character — as well as Zendaya’s well-received role as MJ — have played significant factors in teen audiences embracing what is otherwise the third of four Spidey iterations on the big screen in the last two decades. The success of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse last Christmas could add further goodwill to the brand even though it has no relation to the MCU storyline.

In fairness, it could also be argued that Spider-Man fatigue might settle in at some point given his appearance in a handful of MCU films over the past four years. If this sequel, which additionally has the goodwill of 2017’s Homecoming to build from, falls on the conservative end of expectations at the box office this week, that fatigue will certainly be one of the explanations to be thrown around.

Nevertheless, this is ultimately a sure-fire hit with a strong $110.8 million international take already in the bag from just China, Hong Kong, and Japan. We see little reason for domestic results to be less impressive, but it’s still important to exercise cautious optimism until the stateside market officially rebounds and moviegoer confidence returns to normal in the actual results.

Spider-Man: Far From Home

3-Day / 6-Day Domestic Range: $75 million – $110 million / $150 million – $220 million

Top 10 vs. Last Year

Boxoffice projects this weekend’s top ten films will increase approximately 1 – 6 percent from the same frame last year when Ant-Man and the Wasp debuted to $75.8 million as part of an overall $179.4 million top ten weekend post-Independence Day.

Weekend Forecast

Film Distributor 3-Day Weekend Forecast Projected Domestic Total through Sunday, July 7 % Change from Last Wknd Spider-Man: Far From Home Sony / Columbia $97,400,000 $200,000,000 NEW Toy Story 4 Disney / Pixar $30,000,000 $293,300,000 -50% Yesterday Universal $10,700,000 $35,100,000 -37% Annabelle Comes Home Warner Bros. / New Line $10,600,000 $49,400,000 -48% Aladdin (2019) Disney $6,200,000 $316,400,000 -39% Midsommar A24 $4,900,000 $8,500,000 NEW

Alex Edghill contributed to this report

Forecasts subject to change as location counts are finalized before Friday.

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