Top opening weekends at the box office in the U.S. & Canada 2022

As of July 2022, "Avengers: Endgame" (2019) held the record for the biggest opening weekend at the North American box office – a term that excludes Mexico and includes the United States and Canada. It grossed around 357 million U.S. dollars on its first weekend of screening. Released two years later, Marvel's "Spider-Man: No Way Home" ranked second with more than 260 million dollars. The comic books' publisher was also behind the movie in the third place: "Avengers: Infinity War" (2018) had box office revenue of almost 260 million dollars.

Film series

Out of the titles among the top 15, only two are not part of movie franchises – "The Lion King" (2019) and "Beauty and the Beast" (2017). The pattern reinforces the idea of film series continuing to be a lucrative formula in the most influential cinema market in the world. And the audience seems to remain eager for more of it. During a mid-2022 survey, more than 55 percent of adults in the U.S. expressed at least some interest in viewing a new installment of the Star Wars, Jurassic World, or Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) brands on the big screen.

From theaters to streaming services

As the pandemic continued, so did the decrease in consumer spending on movie tickets in the U.S. In 2021, the value stood below 2.50 dollars, the lowest in the current century. Meanwhile, forecasts for streaming platforms were promising. It was estimated that the revenue of the Video-on-Demand (VoD) market in the U.S. amounted to 36 billion dollars in 2021, an annual growth of more than 16 percent.