This weekend was all about Spiderman: Homecoming with Sony and Marvel’s series reboot swinging to a $257 million global debut. SHC is the first collaboration between the two studio,a venture that was initiated by Sony’s ex-vice-chair Amy Pascal after the two  pictures starring Andrew Garfield fell short of the original Tobey Maguire trilogy. 21 year old English actor Tom Holland is a new, younger face for the character and brings a level of teenage angst and awkwardness that had been absent from the series since, but is more light hearted than that found in 2002’s Spider-Man. After the events in Captain America: Civil War, Holland’s Peter Parker is struggling to adapt to his new identity as an almost-member of the Avengers. When high-tech guns powered by alien crystals start hitting the streets of New York he’s forced to take stock of the limit of his powers. Reluctant mentor Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) offers more tough love than encouragement when the young hero finds himself out of his depth fighting these high-tech gunrunners. He’ll have to do a lot of growing up to stop them.

US sales alone were worth $117 million, making it the second biggest opening ever for Sony without adjusting for inflation. Spiderman swung into 56 foreign markets and netted $140 million there in its first weekend abroad. Korea was easily its biggest territory with $25.8 million. It had strong numbers all across Asia, with $6.9 million in Indonesia, $4.8 million in Taiwan and a significant $6.5 million in theatre-shy India. The UK was the biggest European territory at $11.8 million while Mexico led Latin America with $12 million. Russian plays were worth $7.8 million and Australia turned in a decent $7.6 million. France and Germany open next week while China still doesn’t have a release schedule and won’t until after their July foreign film embargo.

Despicable Me 3, the last movie to open in the Middle Kingdom before its yearly foreign freeze-out, made an outstanding $66 million there, the biggest ever start for an animated film in the country. France opened with an impressive $9.1 million, while Germany was worth $8.5 million. At home in North America DM3 made $33 million, dropping a respectable 53% in a tough second frame against a big competitor. Added to last week’s opening sales this brings Universal and Illumination Entertainment’s animated hit to within a hair of $300 million in just two frames.

Nothing went into wide release in the US this weekend against Homecoming but there were several interesting indie openings and expansions. Amazon and Lionsgate’s Judd Apatow-producedd The Big Sick moved into 362 screens and made $3.6 million, a good start to its measured nationwide push. A24’s reflective indie drama A Ghost Story opened to $108,067 in four theaters for a $27K per theatre average. While it stars Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara and is directed by David Lowery, it was shot as a micro budget feature for just $100K. Similarly titled City of Ghosts, about a Syrian activist organization in war-torn Raqqa, opened to 16K in two New York theatres.

Next week get ready for War for the Planet of the Apes, opening worldwide, and The Big Sick will make a bigger expansion in the US.

See the latest world box office estimates: