Spider-Man: Homecoming Passes Iron Man at Domestic Box Office

Spider-Man: Homecoming just inched past the first Iron Man at the domestic box office. Sony and Marvel Studios’ re-imagining of Spidey as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been a global success, bringing in over $737 million worldwide and running not too far behind Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 domestically. Iron Man got the MCU started back in 2008 and was a massive success in its own right; its gradual tumble down the list of most successful MCU movies shows just how well the mega-franchise has performed in the years since.


It may be a slow summer season overall at the movies, but Homecoming can be counted as one of its big winners. The movie drew critical acclaim, due in no small part to the performances of Tom Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man. Homecoming’s domestic total alone far outpaces its $175 million budget – and the movie can now say that it was a bigger success in North America than Iron Man ever was.

As it currently reads on Box Office Mojo, Sunday’s domestic box office numbers leave Homecoming at the $318.8 million mark, which officially pushes it past Iron Man’s domestic total of $318.4 million. Its $737 million worldwide total had already bested Iron Man’s $585 million. Homecoming will likely finish its theatrical run as the seventh-highest-grossing MCU movie in the U.S., just behind Guardians of the Galaxy’s $333 million.


Homecoming is unlikely to catch any of Sony’s first three Spider-Man movies at the domestic box office. But it has already far outpaced both Amazing Spider-Man movies, which domestically grossed $262 million and $202 million, respectively. Since there are no current plans to make Iron Man 4 – and that Tony Stark could even possibly die in next year’s Avengers: Infinity War – the first Iron Man will continue to be the standard to which future Homecoming sequels are compared.


Robert Downey Jr. will, of course, continue to portray Tony Stark/Iron Man in Infinity War and potentially the Homecoming sequel planned for 2019. Though he could be written out of the MCU in Infinity War, Downey Jr.’s chemistry with Holland as Peter Parker would be hard to pass up in the sequel and impossible to replicate with a different character. If the next Homecoming movie approaches the quality of the first, it has a chance to once again outpace Iron Man at the box office.


The biggest factor in Downey Jr.’s future in the MCU as Tony Stark is, of course, Downey Jr. himself. Though the A-lister has said before that he feels like he could do one more Iron Man movie, he also recently said he wants to retire from the MCU “before it’s embarrassing.” So Downey Jr.’s role in the MCU after Infinity War remains firmly up in the air – but Spider-Man: Homecoming nonetheless remains a major success thanks in part to his talents.