Sony’s Spider-Man universe has hit a new low. Madame Web has broken the record for the universe by having the worst opening weekend at the box office than its predecessors. Through its three-day weekend, it grossed $15.4 million and a little more on its five-day opening to about $26 million domestic. Internationally, the Dakota Johnson-led film grossed about $25 million.
By the time Madame Web reaches its one-week marker, it will fall below the opening of Morbius, which grossed $39 million for its opening. The rough start will make it difficult to reach the Jared Leto vampire flick’s $162 million global run.
Things Look Grim at the Box Office for Sony After the Opening of Madame Web
Excluding the Spider-Verse movies, the current live-action franchise Sony has been building is four movies deep and is already running out of gas. So far, the highest-grossing films in the franchise starts at Venom ($856 million), then moves down to Venom: Let There Be Carnage ($501 million), and the previously mentioned $162 million for Morbius.
The saving grace for Sony is that these films have had minor budgets compared to your average superhero film. Madame Web had a budget of $80 million, $20-30 million smaller than the $100+ million for both Venom movies. Morbius had the lowest loss with its $75 million budget. Comparatively, Marvel has spent big bucks on its films, like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ($250 million), The Marvels ($270 million), and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania ($275 million).
Word of mouth and reviews for Madame Web have been disastrous, leading to its abysmal opening week at the box office. Initially, it was above Morbius with its Rotten Tomatoes score, but it dipped day by day until it tied and ultimately reached 13%, a percentage below Morbius.
The superhero slate for 2024 looks more barren than usual as the strikes pushed projects from Marvel to 2025 and beyond. Meanwhile, DC is rebooting itself with James Gunn’s leadership guiding it to a new universe. Marvel and DC will only have one movie each with Deadpool & Wolverine and Joker: Folie à Deux. This put the ball in Sony’s court as it will also release Kraven the Hunter and Venom 3 later this year. With the current state of Madame Web‘s box office, things are not looking hot for the next two films the studio will be releasing.
