Hollywood
‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ leaps to box office success amid Omicron concerns
Los Angeles: No one could be surprised that ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ would be one of this year’s box office biggest heroes but it’s spinning its way to becoming the best December domestic opening with $253 million, the best ever for Sony and the third best-ever among all films beating 2015’s ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ domestic opening of $247.9 million.
The film, released exclusively in theatres, is attracting enthusiastic moviegoers with record-breaking support in the US. This is big news for theaters whose continued existence seems under constant threat due to the sustained Covid-19 pandemic.
American Multi-Cinema (AMC) announced Friday that roughly 1.1 million moviegoers attended the opening night of ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ in the US, making it the highest-grossing opening night for a December title in AMC’s history. Cinemark called the film’s debut its “best opening night of all time.” And Regal said the film became its second-highest Thursday box office title in its history and shattered records for IMAX, 4DX, ScreenX, and RPX formats.
Worldwide, the film, starring Tom Holland as Marvel’s friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, is crushing box office records — with this weekend’s global $587.2 million tally, it ranks as the third-biggest worldwide debut in history behind “Avengers: Endgame” (a historic $1.2 billion) and “Avengers: Infinity War” ($640 million). Notably, the top two films opened in China, which is currently the world’s biggest movie-going market, while ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ has yet to secure a release date there.
In India, the movie continues to keep the Indian box office buzzing. In just three days, the film has managed to cross the Rs 100 crore mark beating other Bollywood films. The much-awaited superhero action film was released on 16 December across 3,264 screens in English, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu versions.
“This weekend’s historic ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ results, from all over the world and in the face of many challenges, reaffirm the unmatched cultural impact that exclusive theatrical films can have when they are made and marketed with vision and resolve,” said Sony’s Motion Picture Group chairman and CEO Tom Rothman as reported in Variety. “All of us at Sony Pictures, are deeply grateful to the fabulous talent, both in front of and behind the camera, that produced such a landmark film. Thanks to their brilliant work, this Christmas everyone can enjoy the big screen gift of 2021’s mightiest Super Hero — your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.”
Credit should also be given to Marvel itself for amping up the prestige of this sequel and fueling fans’ anticipation for months. Directed by Jon Watts, the third chapter in Holland’s trilogy takes place after Peter Parker’s identity is revealed to the world, upending the lives of his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya), his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), and his aunt May (Marisa Tomei).
Critics have embraced ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’, describing the film as a “satisfying meta-adventure.” Audiences have been equally receptive; the movie secured an “A+” CinemaScore and a 99 per cent Rotten Tomatoes average.
‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ delivered a particularly strong turnout in western Europe, led by the United Kingdom. In the UK, ticket sales reached $41.4 million during its extended five-day opening to notch the fourth-biggest debut ever in that market. The film opened in France with $17.8 million, Italy with $13 million, Germany with $11.4 million, and Spain with $10.4 million. In eastern Europe, Russia led with $17.4 million, followed by Ukraine ($2.4 million) and Turkey ($1.4 million).
Latin American countries webbed up $79.5 million in total, with Mexico’s five-day tally hitting $32.4 million, the country’s highest of all time. Argentina also recorded its best box office debut with $6.8 million, as did Ecuador with $3.7 million.
In Asia, the movie notched the largest tally in South Korea ($23.7 million), followed by Hong Kong ($6.3 million). Other notable markets include Saudi Arabia ($5.2 million), Israel ($2.7 million), and New Zealand ($2.3 million).
Hollywood
Utopai Studios partners Huace to deploy PAI for long form content
Deal includes revenue sharing as Huace adopts AI engine across global ops
MUMBAI: Lights, camera… algorithm, the script just got a silicon co-writer. In a move that signals how storytelling itself is being re-engineered, U.S.-based Utopai Studios has partnered China’s Huace Film & TV Co. Ltd. to bring artificial general intelligence into the heart of long-form content creation.
At the centre of the deal is PAI, Utopai’s cinematic storytelling system, which Huace will deploy as a core engine across its production pipeline from development and creative iteration to global localisation. The partnership includes a large-scale annual usage commitment from Huace, alongside a usage-based revenue-sharing model, underscoring both ambition and commercial confidence on both sides.
For Huace, one of China’s largest film and television companies, the bet is not on automation alone but on scale with control. With distribution spanning over 200 countries and a presence across more than 20 international platforms, including Netflix and YouTube, the company brings a vast content ecosystem where even marginal efficiency gains can translate into significant output shifts. Its extensive TV IP library further positions it as fertile ground for AI-assisted storytelling workflows.
The choice of PAI follows what Huace described as a rigorous evaluation of existing AI tools, many of which remain limited to fragmented use cases such as video generation or editing. What tipped the scales, according to the company, was PAI’s ability to handle long-form narrative complexity maintaining continuity, structure, and creative coherence across entire story arcs rather than isolated clips.
Utopai, for its part, is using the partnership to anchor its international expansion strategy, pitching PAI as an enterprise-ready system built for customisation, privacy, and regulatory adaptability across markets. That positioning becomes particularly relevant as global media companies increasingly scrutinise how AI integrates into proprietary workflows.
The timing is notable. Earlier this month, Utopai upgraded PAI to support three-minute 4K video generation and advanced multi-shot sequencing features designed to tackle one of AI storytelling’s biggest hurdles: consistency across scenes.
What emerges is not just another tech collaboration, but a glimpse into how the grammar of filmmaking could evolve. Because if stories were once crafted frame by frame, the next chapter might just be coded scene by scene.
