With no new wide-releases, you would normally expect a lag in the box-office – unless there was a strong rotation of titles in theaters. And that’s exactly what they had! Moviegoers came back this weekend to watch (or re-watch) well-liked titles that released last year. Overall, the box-office collected an impressive $35.6M.

Amid a $47M weekend with no new, “must-see” releases (we’ll get to those later), Spider-Man: No Way Homeeasily swings back to the number one spot with another $14M. Dropping just 29.7% from last weekend, Spider-Man continues to benefit from phenomenal word-of-mouth, and the lack of competition. The third installment of the Marvel/Sony Spider-Man franchise has brought in a box-office total of $721M – making it the fourth highest-grossing domestic film of all time (behind Avatar’s $760.5M). Worldwide, Spidey claims the sixth highest gross with $1.69B.

January is typically a slower month at the box-office. That is not to say that January is slow month for moviegoing. In recent years, studios have seen success with dropping event-level films first: American Sniper, Bad Boys for Life, Ride Along, Kung Fu Panda 3, Glass, Cloverfield, and Split – these all opened north of $40M.

Before the year’s biggest tentpole Spider-Man: No Way Home hits the big screen, Disney launched a film of a very different flavor this weekend. Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story aimed to fill the calm before the storm – leveraging the director’s pedigree, positive reviews, a beloved narrative, and growing Oscar buzz to get moviegoers out of their homes.

Over the five-day break (Wed 11/24 to Sun 11/28), the box-office cooked up $139.5M – with $94.9M of that earned during the three-day weekend. Despite falling short from pre-covid norms, the Thanksgiving weekend offers three highlights. First, that five-day total is seven times better than Thanksgiving 2020 – back when many theaters were shuttered, when the only box-office pull was The Croods: A New Age, and before it was possible to vaccinate.

Last week’s headliner, Eternals, hauled in another $27.5M in its sophomore weekend – ahead of the $16.4M weekend from Paramount’s new film Clifford the Big Red Dog, and leading the charts of this $71.3M weekend. Despite the mixed word-of-mouth, the Marvel superhero epic dropped just -61% from its debut.

November starts off strong with a $109M weekend headlined by the new release from Disney’s Marvel Studios: Eternals. The star-studded superhero movie and third entry in Marvel’s “Phase Four” landed a $71M debut – the fourth highest open of the year behind Venom, Black Widow, and Shang-Chi. While coming to the theater was a no-brainer for the loyal MCU fanbase, those outside the bubble may have hesitated due to the “rotten” rating on RottenTomatoes.

The curtains close on October with a final $64.7M weekend – sweetening the pot of the calendar month to $638M. Moviegoers come back to theaters for titles that excite them, and October had plenty on offer: Venom Let There Be Carnage, No Time to Die, Halloween Kills, and Dune.