Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse tops the box office with a $35 million debut

With great Spider-Man movies comes great box office returns.

Sony's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse topped the box office this weekend with a solid $35 million debut, per Box Office Mojo. This was slightly below projections that pegged it closer to $42 million, but still a fine start for the animated flick, which critics have hailed as one of the best movies ever to feature Marvel's iconic web-slinger.

Sony hopes the movie will attract crowds during the lucrative holiday season, but it will face some tough competition. The 2018 holiday season is among the most competitive in years, with Mary Poppins Returns, Bumblebee, and Aquaman all opening shortly before Christmas.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Clint Eastwood's The Mule also performed well this weekend with a $17 million haul. That's a stronger start than Eastwood's last film, The 15:17 to Paris, although not as strong as Sully's $35 million debut. The film should be able to appeal to those looking for more adult-oriented fare over the holiday break; per The Hollywood Reporter, more than half its audience this weekend was over 50.

On the other hand, Universal Pictures' Mortal Engines' opening was a disaster. The fantasy film based on the popular young adult novel had an embarrassing debut of just $7 million, coming in fifth place behind movies that have been out for well over a month, like The Grinch. Mortal Engines reportedly cost more than $100 million to make, and it's expected to lose the studio about that much, per Deadline. When all is said and done, it may end up being the very biggest box office bomb of 2018.