The huge success of Spider-Man: No Way Home was an anomaly in an otherwise disappointing season and with release dates shifting, 2022 could bring more woe
Movies are back! Or so we thought back in 2021 when, after a year of shuttered cinemas, it seemed like a dormant industry was hurtling back to life. Last spring, Godzilla vs Kong led the charge, the first genuine hit of the pandemic, and soon A Quiet Place Part II, F9, Black Widow and Free Guy followed, many of them making less than initial expectations but still more than enough to encourage studios that, despite previous fears, the cinema was not going the way of the video store.
The year closed out with the biggest hit of them all, Spider-Man: No Way Home, a record-breaker regardless of release date, already up to over $1.3bn globally in less than a month and likely to be one of the most successful films of all time. But buried underneath the headline was some troubling bad news – surprise flops, safety concerns from older cinemagoers, shifting release strategies – and now, as 2022 kicks off, history is on the verge of repeating itself.
