As worldwide positivity rates for the Omicron variant rose in December, Hollywood enjoyed its most lucrative period since the beginning of the pandemic. Spider-Man: No Way Home is the first movie since COVID-19 to gross over $1 billion USD. It is already Sony’s most successful film. The box office success of Spider-Man indicates that franchise and blockbuster movies will return to the pre-pandemic model of exclusive cinema release, leaving the dual releases of many COVID-19 era movies behind. The contribution of Spider-Man’s massive marketing campaign and budget cannot be understated, and it’s likely that commercial success in theatres will only be available to movies made by massive, established corporations who can afford such large-scale productions, further unbalancing an already stratified industry. Amid this resurgence, the popularity of sensational and fantastical movies during a mass death event can also elucidate the relationship between illness and escapism.
Other films have fared poorly. For example, The Matrix: Resurrections performed abysmally, failing to break even. Spider-Man is an outlier, notwithstanding its release during the rise of the Omicron variant.
What is it about Marvel movies that reverse the trends of reticence and avoidance which have characterized the reception of big-screen productions during the pandemic? It must be more than the breathless, frenzied drama of this high-budget production, its connection to an expansive, intricate cinematic universe, or the allure of Tom Holland and Zendaya’s performances — although these were certainly influences.
Rather, emphasis should be placed on Sony’s decision to release Spider-Man: No Way Home exclusively in theatres, a decision which can only be understood as calculating and indifferent towards the safety of viewers. It’s no surprise that a company like Sony is willing to exacerbate a mass death event to garner profit. Over the course of the pandemic, people have been forced to risk their wellness in the service of profit in many industries. What’s notable is how Marvel and Sony presented this movie as both topical and fantastical, leading to even higher attendance.
Personally, sci-fi and fantasy genres allow me to feel a vast and intimate range of emotions because they are so distant from my reality, so unreal. With unfamiliar worlds and characters, I can engage with emotions and ideas that might otherwise hit too close to home. Often, these genres move me in ways that more realistic media fail to accomplish due to the latter’s proximity to my life. Genres such as sci-fi and fantasy gain a kind of clarity from a distance, a clarity which allows for catharsis. But, if you wish, they are designed so that you can simply enjoy the story and the excitement without too much care for the world beyond the glow of your screen.
I’m not personally affected by superhero movies in this way, but I think that for many, the modern superhero film works in a similar manner. Whether you’re moved by catharsis or excitement, superhero movies are often marketed as fascinating novelties and familiar tales at the same time. You enter a universe with its own kind of logic: a self-contained, explicit world. Superhero movies have recognizable plots—a beginning, a climax, a resolution. They end. Violence is expressed literally, with an explosion or a fight scene. Still, even though you know what you’re going to get, the appeal of a new superhero movie is often what you haven’t seen before, even when you’re already familiar with their formula.
Such is the promise of the superhero movie, and is bolstered by CGI, A-list celebrities, sound effects, and an exciting score. As spectacular as superhero movies can be on the surface, they fundamentally offer a chance for emotional release—for the viewer to escape from their world, immersed in the story and blanketed by the knowledge that whatever reaction the film elicits takes place not in the real world but in the story, under the cover of darkness in the theatre.
It’s no surprise that people went to see Spider-Man in greater numbers than other films. Whatever you think of superhero movies, there’s no denying their cultural impact. The sheer magnitude of the Marvel franchise furthers this impact: every movie is a piece of a larger narrative, and missing a movie means missing out on much more. To see all the stories is to understand one story, and to see a new movie, you need to have watched them all. Matters aren’t helped by cliffhangers in the movie trailers and post-credit scenes, a characteristic of many superhero films.
This movie is important to people, and Sony knows it. That’s why Spider-Man’s in-theatre release, though it should inspire anger, mostly just saddens me. At this point, it would be counterproductive and cruel to moralize and moan that people shouldn’t be packing movie theatres, or that they should wait until months after the release when the film is finally available to stream. Escapism and fantasies are important to people, especially now. Some might even argue that these things are necessary to the human experience. And the movie is available in theatres. This is not a moral issue—it is the result of the capitalist cultural industry of entertainment that purports to provide an escape from world issues, while being an essential contributor to them.
Spider-Man: No Way Home takes place on an earth free from a deadly illness. Just as the characters are not beholden to the pandemic, the film studios acted as if they, too, were living in a world without COVID-19. But when one fantasy is joyous and the other perilous, it becomes harder and harder to separate the two and parse the escape from the illness.
