EXCLUSIVE: Sony Animation’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is doing some serious business tonight according to box office sources, accumulating $16M off previews that began at 3PM at 3,562 theaters. That’s the second best preview night ever for an animated movie after Disney/Pixar’s Incredibles 2 ($18.5M) from June 2018. Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story 4, with $12M, is now the third best animated movie in previews at the domestic box office.
The preview cash for Across the Spider-Verse alone is 4.5x more than what the first 2018 animated movie, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse, did on its Thursday night, which was $3.5M before a $12.6M Friday and $35.3M 3-day opening.
Now, the question remains how front-loaded Across the Spider-Verse is; hence it’s too early to comp it to Incredibles 2. That Pixar sequel wound up posting a $71.2M first day, 26% of that number from Thursday previews. Incredibles 2 owns the opening weekend record for an animated movie at $182.6M. Opening stateside projections are wild for Across the Spider-Verse ranging from $75M-$90M. Even on the low-end, Across the Spider-Verse‘s 3-day will be more than double the first pic’s opening weekend, still commendable.
What makes the sequel’s box office hard to peg: It’s a Marvel animated movie, which is a rare breed, not to mention it’s one of the longest running animated films of all-time with a runtime of 140 minutes. Among those animated movies with long runtimes, Across the Spider-Verse ties with Funimation/Kyoto Animation’s Violent Evergarden in seventh place. The animated pic with the longest runtime is Sunao Katabuchi’s In This Corner (And Other Corners) of the World at 168 minutes.
Great diagnostics as the weekend heats up for Across the Spider-Verse at 95% certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and RT audiences already giving it 97%. We’ll have more in the AM.
The Phil Lord-Christopher Miller-Amy Pascal-Avi Arad-Christina Steinberg animated sequel also has bragging rights when compared to other live-action Spidey-verse properties, beating the preview night cash of Spider-Man: Homecoming ($15.4M), Venom: Let There Be Carnage ($11.6M), Venom ($10M), and Spider-Man 3 ($10M).