It’s official, James Bond’s latest film, “No Time To Die,” has become the highest grossing film of 2021. It surpassed “F9” by adding $2.7 million to its nearly $730 million dollar gross over the weekend. A sure sign of the franchise’s healthy prospects as it turns its page on the Daniel Craig era.
With the year coming to a close, the top contenders for the year’s biggest box office draw are becoming clearer. It seems James Bond will certainly be one of them. At this point, unless “Eternals” has some supernatural second wind at the box office, no other films that have been released this year will come close to it. The operative word there being “released.” There is still one more big blockbuster to close out the year on and, oh boy, is it a doozy.
“Spider-Man: No Way Home” will be releasing in December and it has a lot going for it. It’s more than likely to take the crown away from Bond for myriad reasons. The first being that it’s Spider-Man. It’s not a controversial statement to say that Spider-Man is a much more universally appealing and traditionally successful IP than Bond. Add to that, the film is a part of the MCU, the titan of the superhero genre, and well, the headlines write themselves.
Currently, box office estimates put “Spider-Man: No Way Home” at an opening weekend north of $100 million. That is just domestically too. “No Time To Die” performed great abroad, but didn’t shatter records in the States. Spider-Man is more than likely to perform on the amazing side here and elsewhere. This will allow the film to really run up the numbers on Bond. Not to mention, “No Way Home” will be releasing in China, making it the first Marvel film to do so this year. Both Bond and “F9” were able to surpass other Marvel releases due to them not being afforded a release in the Middle Kingdom.
The stage is set for either the largest release of the year, or the biggest upset. We’ll just have to wait and see.
