Homecoming Should Top Spider-Man 2 Box Office

Spider-Man: Homecoming is expected to pass Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2's box office haul with its forthcoming China release. The first crack of Marvel Studios at arguably Marvel's most popular character is finally coming to one of the biggest film markets in the world after more than two months of waiting and is looking to pocket a significant amount of ticket sales adding to its already impressive cume.

There was a lot of buzz with regard to the initial release of Homecoming over the summer given that it will be the debut outing of the web-slinging superhero as part of the highly successful Marvel Cinematic Universe. Brought to life by Tom Holland, the third actor to imbibe the character following portrayals from Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield from the Sam Raimi trilogy and Amazing Spider-Man film duology respectively, the character was first introduced via a small but pivotal part in Captain America: Civil War before heading off to his own solo outing. The film turned out to be both a critical, as well as, massive success and is even looking to increase its current global box office loot to more than $850 million.

At this point, Homecoming already has already nabbed almost $750 million and with the last remnant of domestic ticket sales looking to add around $7 million more plus $3-$4 million from other existing foreign markets, it is tracking to pocket around $760 million. That of course, is before it rolls out in China, where Forbes has predicted that even a weak $25 million haul will be enough for it to push past Spider-Man 2 which took home $783.8 million 2004. This will effectively result in the Marvel Studios/Sony Entertainment Pictures collaboration project to officially take over the third spot within its own six-movie franchise.

A $25 million sales in China, however, sounds a little bit too low, especially for a Marvel Studios film and the film featuring arguably MCU's poster boy, Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) is expected to draw more people into seeing the movie. It is important to note that the brand in itself has an impressive track record at the Chinese box office with its properties almost always raking in a $100 million -- and that does not only apply to ensemble movies like the Avengers franchise and other banner properties but also lesser-known characters like Ant-Man. Shall this trend continues, Homecoming will have a strong chance of taking in as much as $850 million further ushering it past Spider-Man (2002) which earned $821 million and making it the second highest grosser in the character's own series, only behind Spider-Man 3 (2007) with $890 million.

Regardless of how Spider-Man: Homecoming's final global gross turns out to be, the movie is already a certified hit that Marvel Studios and Sony are already developing a sequel for 2019. Information regarding the narrative is still scant at this point but director Jon Watts is expected to return behind the camera to helm the follow-up film which will officially open MCU's Phase 4. Meanwhile, before coming back to Queens and Spidey things, the wall-crawler will be next seen in next year's Avengers: Infinity War and the still untitled Avengers 4 where he will be of some help to Earth's Mightiest Heroes as they battle mad Titan Thanos and his evil children, the Black Order.