Spider-Man: No Way Home took the box office by storm, making over $1.8 billion worldwide. The film became the most successful Spider-Man and Spider-Man-related movie property ever, as well as the sixth highest-grossing film of all time, behind Avatar, Avengers: Endgame, Titanic, The Force Awakens and Avengers: Infinity War.
With such success under its mantle, it likely won't be surprising to hear that the net profit for Peter Parker's third solo MCU adventure was remarkably high.
In December of 2021, Deadline stated that net-profit estimates for No Way Home were around $610 million, but it seems the film exceeded expectations. More recently, in a profile discussing the relevance of theatrical windows, the trade reported that the movie surpassed the estimated profit figure by a considerable amount. No exact updated number was provided, though.
The number is attributed to respecting a long theatrical window (the film played in theaters for 88 days). Josh Greenstein, president of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, told Deadline as part of the report: "Our theatrical model is driving our success and that is our core business. [...] Our biggest movie ever had the longest window."
For those unfamiliar with the subject, there's a difference between box-office returns and profit. Box-office money on its own is called "revenue," which is money that a company or entity generates from the sale of services or products. Profit (also known as "bottom line" or "net profit") is the money that's left after taking operating expenses, investments and debt into account. In the case of No Way Home (or any other film, for that matter), that's the cost of making the movie, marketing, participation fees, etc.
How Does No Way Home Compare to Previous Spider-Man Films?
As mentioned, while there is no set profit amount for No Way Home yet, even keeping the projected $610 from 2021 as an example is a remarkable win for the studio. To fully understand how significant the sum is, let's take a look back at the financial performance of the most recent Spider-Man films.
2014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (with a reported budget of $255 million) generated $70.38 million in profit, after making $708 million at the box office. It's worth noting that the film was a particularly expensive venture for Sony and did not meet financial expectations, earning almost $50 million less at the box office than its predecessor, 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man, which made $757 million worldwide (and reportedly cost $230 million to produce).
Things began looking up when 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming arrived. The film (which had a reported $175-million price tag) reinvigorated the Wall-Crawler's popularity, making $200.1 million in profit, after earning $880 million worldwide. 2019's Spider-Man: Far Frome Home took things to another level, earning $339 million in profit for Sony on a $160 million budget (the movie made $1.1 billion at the box office).
With that, No Way Home generated approximately (again, going by the number given by Deadline in December 2021) $529.72 million more profit than The Amazing Spider-Man 2, $409.9 million more than Homecoming, and $272 million more than Far From Home.
The increasing numbers of the MCU Spider-Man franchise shows how steadily the Wall-Crawler's popularity has grown since being welcomed into the Marvel Studios fold. It also once again proves how much of a commodity the hero can be in the right circumstances.
Sony's Spider-Man Universe is going full steam ahead, with its next releases being Kraven the Hunter (January 13, 2023) and Madame Web (July 7, 2023). The studio will also expand its superhero catalogue with Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (June 2, 2023) and its follow-up, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse (March 29, 2024).
Spider-Man: No Way Home is available for purchase on 4K, Blu-ray, DVD and Digital.