Spider-Man: No Way Home is poised to become the fourth highest-grossing domestic film of all time. The fourth film in Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is the third entry in Tom Holland's solo Spider-Man trilogy, premiered in theaters on December 17, 2021. Since then, it has been shattering box office records, becoming the first pandemic-era film to pass $1 billion and slowly inching its way up the list of the top 10 highest-grossing domestic films of all time. Last week it breached the top 5 by knocking James Cameron's megahit Titanic and the prior Marvel crossover Avengers: Infinity War off the list.

While the MCU is known for ambitious crossovers, the plot of Spider-Man: No Way Home blows them out of the water by reaching outside of its own franchise. The plot follows Peter Parker approaching Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to cast a spell to make the world forget his secret identity, accidentally unleashing villains from the multiverse into his world when the spell goes catastrophically wrong. Because of this, Peter not only has to deal with the problems of his own world, he has to face off against the foes of previous iterations of Peter Parker from Sam Raimi's 2002 Spider-Man trilogy and Marc Webb's 2012 The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel.

Related: Sony Admits The Amazing Spider-Man 2's Rhino Was Terrible

Per Deadline, Spider-Man: No Way Home is poised to end the weekend with a worldwide gross of $1.625 billion. In addition to making the film the #1 film of all time in Mexico, this means that the film will be rising to the #4 spot on the list of best-performing films in the domestic box office of all time. This will knock out Black Panther, which Spider-Man has already outgrossed in cumulative box office but was still struggling to match as far as domestic gross.

Tom Holland as Spider-Man kneeling in No Way Home

Spider-Man's continued dominance over the box office landscape comes the same weekend as the news that the film will be knocked out of the #1 slot in its fifth weekend by Scream's $35 million gross. However, until the next major wide releases come to theaters in early February, it remains in question who will reign over the final two weekends of the month. Scream seems poised to have strong growth, but if the film experiences a dip after its strong holiday weekend opening, Spider-Man is the only other film that seems to have a chance at reclaiming the top spot.

Spider-Man: No Way Home is experiencing a natural decline in its weekly grosses, as is to be expected. However, as it continues its stellar theatrical run, it remains to be seen how high it can climb. To reach the #1 slot in the domestic box office, it will have to nab over $200 million more to surpass Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This seems unlikely given the film's downward trend, but stranger things have happened in this unusual era for the box office.

Next: Why No Way Home Gives The DCEU Another Endgame Problem

Source: Deadline

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