There are some who will cite streaming platforms at the death of the cinema and an overload of both movies and music that give too much choice and not enough financial recompense to those involved in their making. While this may be true in a number of recent cases, there are also occasions when having any movie at your fingertips can give a franchise and the company behind it a bit of a boost. It seems that Sony are currently riding on such a wave of attention right now thanks to the arrival of the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer. While the trailer itself was a huge record breaker, the ripples that have come from it are almost as big as those being seen in the Marvel Multiverse as all of Sony's previous Spider-Man movies have found themselves soaring up the iTunes rental chart.

All seven of Sony's Spider-Man movies from Tobey Maguire's 2002 debut through to 2019's Spider-Man: Far From Home have landed in the top 50 movies, as well as the likes of Venom and Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse also taking a leap to number 30 and 67 in the chart respectively. The Spider-Man movies are currently holding these positions.

Just as a guide as how this stacks up in terms of other movies, it puts Tom Holland's last outing as the webbed-wonder as a more popular choice for renters than the likes of Snake Eyes: GI Joe Origins and Peter Rabbit 2, which sit at numbers 3 and 4, while Marvel's own Black Widow is at 6. Spider-Man: Far From Home is currently only being held off the top spot by The Hitman's Bodyguard's Wife, one of Ryan Reynolds' newest offerings, which has only just released with a $5.99 price tag and was I the top spot on August 27.

There have been few movies with more hype around them than the new Spider-Man offering, and while Avengers: Endgame offered the largest number of superheroes ever seen on screen and the end of an era for a number of Marvel's biggest MCU characters, Spider-Man: No Way Home is offering the unique and at one time unimaginable prospect of the past and present coming together with an amalgamation of the entire Sony Spider-Man collection. The new trailer confirmed the return of iconic villains such as Green Goblin and Doc Ock, although exactly how they will appear and what part they play are yet unknown. There has as yet been no footage of either Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield in the trailer, but as we know Marvel movies never play all their aces at once.

The surge in attention of previous Spider-Man properties may be an unexpected bonus for Sony, but it will also be an encouraging sign that there are many people reminding themselves of the history of both previous incarnations of the character in preparation for No Way Home' s arrival on December 17. This can only mean good things for box office returns on the movie in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, and may prove to be a good indication how theatrical releases are faring when we come to the end of the year.