It is too bad Sony can't make a new Spider-Man movie every weekend.
The webslinger's latest outing -- Spider-Man: No Way Home -- has now grossed more than $467 million domestically and topped $1 billion worldwide at the box office since its Dec 17 release.
That makes it the biggest hit of the pandemic period by far, with the movie selling more than twice as many tickets as the next runner-up, Disney's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, according to the box-office tracking site The Numbers.
That level of business would qualify the movie as a hit even pre-pandemic; only 45 other movies in history have topped the $1 billion mark globally.
And with its exclusive release to theaters, Spider-Man has also given a much-needed boost to the movie exhibition industry that is still reeling from the pandemic's effects.
But there is only so much a single film can do. With only a few days left in the year, the theater industry is generating less than half the business it did before the first Covid-19 outbreak in early 2020.
Domestic ticket sales this year are only running at about 38% of their level in 2019, according to The Numbers.
That has curbed expectations significantly.
Alicia Reese of Wedbush projects the domestic box office in 2022 will rise to about 60% of 2019's totals.
Wall Street's revenue projections for Cinemark and AMC Entertainment in 2022 are about 83% of what the two chains managed in 2019, according to consensus estimates on FactSet.
Those projections are based in part on the notion of returning patrons having a stronger appetite, literally: concession revenue projections for the two chains in 2022 are more than 90% of their respective 2019 levels.
Getting to that level will require more movies doing big numbers, which is no small feat in the age of streaming.
Spider-Man producer Sony Pictures is the only major Hollywood studio left without its own streaming outlet to fill. The rest are doing a delicate balancing act, wanting to cash in on theatrical ticket sales while still having major, exclusive pieces of content to lure streaming subscribers.
That calculus has muddled the returns on blockbuster-sized movies ranging from Disney's Black Widow -- which was available to stream at home for $30 on the day of its theatrical debut -- to the entire 2021 theatrical slate of AT&T's Warner Bros., which were available free to HBO Max subscribers on the same day as their theatrical releases.
Warner's latest -- The Matrix Resurrections hit theaters just ahead of the Christmas holiday and took in only $12 million on its opening weekend -- a record low for the franchise, according to Box Office Mojo.
But even exclusive theatrical releases from major franchises aren't surefire hits.
Eternals from Disney's Marvel universe and the latest James Bond outing No Time to Die from MGM launched into a fully reopened domestic circuit this fall but still fell short of expectations.
And West Side Story from famed director Steven Spielberg grossed only $10.6 million on its opening weekend earlier this month -- a notable low from the filmmaker ranked as the world's highest-grossing director, according to The Numbers.
The booming business for Spider-Man: No Way Home -- which grossed $81.5 million during its second weekend despite surging cases of the Covid-19 Omicron variant nationwide -- shows moviegoers will still turn out in droves for the right flick.
The problem for theater owners and their investors is that those right flicks are getting fewer and farther between -- and much harder to spot ahead of time.
