We’ll see if Spider-Man: No Way Home – The More Fun Stuff Edition takes the Labor Day box office crown when the final figures are released tomorrow. I wouldn’t be shocked if Top Gun: Maverick reigned supreme one last time. However, the estimated $6.55 million Fri-Mon gross means it’s already a successful gambit. The $250 million flick had already earned $804 million domestic and $1.91 billion worldwide from a $260 million domestic debut, without a penny from China. It has now reached a domestic lifetime total of $811 million domestic. That won’t change its ranking on the all-timers list. It’s still third in raw domestic earnings, 23rd in inflation-adjusted domestic grosses (right between The Graduate and Raiders the Lost Ark) and sixth on the global list.

It’s the biggest opening for a reissue in nearly a decade.

However, its $7.6 million Fri-Mon gross, even if it entirely drops dead after today, makes it the most successful domestic reissue in nearly ten years. There’s a long history of big movies being reissued in theaters. Some films, like 101 Dalmatians, earned far more of their lifetime total gross (say, 90% of a $145 million lifetime cume) via post-debut reissues than they did in their (for example) $14 million original release gross. Disney perfected the theatrical rerelease to turn even their underperforming animated films (like, say, Pinocchio) into perceived classics and cultural touchstones. The theatrical release was a bigger deal before VHS and cable allowed consumers to watch films at home on videotape or more regular television airings.

Even then, a well-marketed ‘special edition’ of Star Wars (timed for its 20th anniversary and with new scenes and post-production tweaks) could open with $37 million in early 1997 and gross $136 million domestic. That was a milestone for January until Cloverfield in 2008 and bigger than any Star Trek film until the 2009 Star Trek reboot. The Exorcist: The Version You’ve Never Seen earned $40 million domestically and $112 million worldwide in late 2000. Steven Spielberg caused controversy in early 2002 when he swapped out gun-wielding FBI agents for walkie-talkie-wielding feds (surely cops would never shoot kids, right?) in the 20th-anniversary reissue of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. It grossed $35 million domestic, on par with the $40 million it earned via a 1985 reissue in its pre-VHS days.

The Lion King ushered in a brief wave of 3-D rereleases.

Improving 3-D technology became a way to justify new theatrical releases for older, kid-targeted flicks. In September of 2009, months before Avatar cemented 3-D as Hollywood’s new favorite toy, Disney released a double-bill of Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in 3-D, complete with an exclusive teaser for Toy Story 3 for an extra $30 million domestic. The next big reissue was James Cameron’s Avatar, which returned to theaters in August of 2010 and added another $10.7 million domestic and $43 million worldwide to its $2.8 billion lifetime cume. Walt Disney re-released The Lion King in 3-D in September 2011. It shocked us all with a $32 million opening weekend. It earned $94 million domestically and $185 million worldwide. It kicked off a brief wave of Disney flicks getting the ‘now back in theaters’ treatment.

Beauty and the Beast earned another $47 million domestic in early 2012, while Monsters Inc. earned ‘just’ $34 million in late 2013. A planned reissue of The Little Mermaid was canceled, and the Disney Vault was metaphorically closed. Instead, Disney began cranking out mega-budget live-action remakes or spin-offs of their animated flicks. However, we got a few high-profile 3-D reissue success stories after The Lion King. James Cameron reissued Titanic in early 2012 for the 100th anniversary of the ship’s doomed voyage. It would earn $58 million domestically and $245 million overseas, including $145 million in China, for a new $2.2 billion worldwide cume. It’s returning next Valentine’s Day, so maybe it can steal back the ‘biggest Paramount domestic earner’ milestone from that pesky Top Gun: Maverick.

3-D rereleases of The Phantom Menace and Jurassic Park pushed both past $1 billion worldwide.

The Phantom Menace 3-D earned $42 million domestically and $102 million worldwide in early 2012. Planned reissues of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith didn’t happen, both due to slightly underwhelming results and because Disney would soon buy Lucasfilm. Jurassic Park 3-D earned $45 million domestically and $118 million worldwide. In both cases, the new cash pushed both films’ respective totals past $1 billion worldwide, making them the slowest $1 billion grossers (19.75 years and 12.75 years). Unless I missed one, Jurassic Park 3-D was the end of the line. Over the last decade, 3-D, IMAX and/or anniversary reissues of Forrest Gump, Saw, Ghostbusters, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Schindler’s List and Terminator 2: Judgement Day earned between $500,000 and $4 million, respectively.

None of the 36 older movies rereleased in 2020 made more than the $4.8 million grossed by Hocus Pocus, followed by $2.4 million for The Empire Strikes Back (whose 1997 special edition reissue earned $67 million domestic). It’s no mystery why a wide theatrical release of an established blockbuster isn’t as big of a deal in 2022 as it might have been in 1997 or 2012. Even then, theaters had to contend with DVD, VHS, video games and the Internet. Now they have DVD, VOD, social media, and streaming, with various high-priority platforms offering the sort of films whose theatrical resurrection once might have been a big deal. So it matters that Spider-Man: No Way Home is the biggest theatrical reissue in a generation.

A strong showing for Spider-Man: No Way Home is encouraging news for Avatar.

It shows the value of the MCU brand, even as the chattering class seems convinced that Marvel is doomed because the last two MCU movies ‘only’ grossed $1.71 billion (without China or Russia) worldwide. It also points to a decent showing for James Cameron’s Avatar. The all-time global blockbuster returned to theaters in China early last year, earning another $57 million (following a $205 million gross in 2010) to boost its global total past Avengers: Endgame to take its crown back. That seems to be a best-case-scenario result here, and it only needs $153 million worldwide to become the first $3 billion-plus global grosser.

The hope is that Avatar will play like a big-deal 3-D theatrical rerelease from the early 2010s. For a brief period, just before the shift from theaters to streaming, audiences who already owned the DVD were showing up in theaters to see their favorite four-quadrant blockbusters. Spider-Man: No Way Home overperformed this weekend, in spite (or because) of tickets being $3 on Saturday amid ‘National Cinema Day.’ That may imply audiences will show up to watch a 160-minute sci-fi action fantasy that hasn’t been available in theaters in 12 years. My kids aren’t always indicative of general audiences (they had no interest in Top Gun: Maverick), but my seven-year-old regularly pesters me about The Way of Water.