Why Spider-Man Matters: An examination of the critical and box office success of “No Way Home”

Rounding out 2021, Marvel Studios and Sony granted their fans another great superhero movie. On Friday, December 17, “Spider-Man: No Way Home was released, with the Marvel community delighted to witness multiple trailers and cast reveals, the anticipation this movie had was electric as fans got to see the continuation of 2019’s “Spider-Man: Far From Home” and culmination of Tom Holland’s first MCU Spider-Man trilogy. “Spider-Man: No Way Homehas been breaking records and is still going strong over a month into its theatrical run..

“No Way Home” picks up right where the previous film in the series, Far From Home, ends where Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is framed by Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio for attacks in London using Stark technology for murder. Spider-Man’s identity is revealed, leaving Peter Parker’s life and everyone around him a mess. He then goes to Dr. Strange to clear his identity. However, Parker doesn’t want those closest to him to forget his identity, disrupting the spell and opening the multiverse to villains who know Spider-Man. The story is very interesting and brings nostalgia to fans of the series, but revealing any more will spoil some of the best surprises. 

“No Way Home” has everything from great performances to big action set pieces. The movie became the first pandemic-era movie to cross $1 billion dollars and is catching up to the domestic haul of “Avengers: Infinity War” (cinemablend.com). At the box office, No Way Home” made an impressive $670 million domestically, only $8 million behind “Infinity War.” If the legs of “No Way Home” continue, the movie will be in the top five all-time of highest-grossing movies domestically (cinemablend.com). Right now, “No Way Home” is in the top fourth highest-grossing film domestically in the entire MCU (Box Office Mojo). 

To me, No Way Homeimproved much of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. In previous films, he was missing one important quality that both of the previous live-action Spider-Men, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, had. This film really captured that and if you’ve watched the movie and the other Spider-Man movies you can see what I’m talking about. 

Personally, this was one of the best movies I’ve watched in a while. Everyone who is a fan of Marvel movies could tell you this was the movie we needed right now. The experience is what made it special. I watched “No Way Home” the night it came out and everyone was going wild. After the movie, I spent hours talking to friends, seeing Twitter reactions, Instagram stories, etc. The fan reactions were amazing. I haven’t seen this type of reaction sinceAvengers: Endgame” or Joaquin Phoenix’s “Joker” in 2019.

When asking friends about their opinions on “No Way Home,” they say it is their favorite movie beating out other Marvel movies. Even on Twitter, fans were saying it was better than both previous Spider-Man and other popular Marvel movies. That shouldn’t be a surprise as it provides characters from older Spider-Man movies, constant action, and great character development for Holland. 

If you haven’t watched “No Way Home,” I highly recommend that you find time in your busy schedules and experience this masterpiece. 

Sources: Box Office Mojo, CinemaBlend

Photo: Sony Pictures

Spider-Man (Tom Holland) in “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”

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