What’s so special about Spider-Man?
Sony and Marvel’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” exploded to a $932 million global box office opening this weekend, but this isn’t even the first time the web crawler has been associated with box office records. Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire’s genre-defining “Spider-Man” was the first movie to ever gross over $100 million in opening weekend back in 2002, and 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home” — which brought together Maguire, Tom Holland and Andrew Garfield — was the highest-grossing movie of that year.
Here are the “Brand New Day” numbers at a glance:
- $360 million domestic launch, beating “Avengers: Endgame’s” $357 million record.
- $121 million five-day opening in China.
- A CinemaScore and 98% Rotten Tomatoes audience score.
- 36% of opening weekend crowd was between 18-24, drawing in Gen Z.
Spider-Man is arguably the most popular superhero in the world right now, but credit goes to Tom Holland, Sony and Marvel for excellent brand management throughout the tenure of Holland’s reign. 2017’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming” marked an unlikely collaboration between Disney’s Marvel Studios (as creative lead) and Sony Pictures (as producer and distributor), and that relationship has proven fruitful for four films as Holland’s iteration of the character — much younger than the Maguire and Garfield versions onscreen — endeared himself to audiences, first with a high school-set trilogy and now with a more mature evolution of the franchise.
But Holland, crucially, has been a vital shepherd through Spidey’s ups and downs. When talks broke down between Disney and Sony after 2019’s “Far From Home” and Sony was looking to go it alone on future Spider-Man pics, Holland personally got Bob Iger’s phone number and urged the Disney CEO and Tom Rothman to find a path forward. It worked.
And while Sony made a slew of Spider-Man spinoffs that were, let’s just say, not as universally beloved as Holland’s movies, Holland’s Peter Parker was kept far away from those films. There was no muddying the waters. This Peter Parker’s reputation would remain pristine.
There’s also the ancillary Spider-Man properties that kept the superhero top of mind in the public consciousness, not the least of which is the Disney Jr. preschool series “Spidey and His Amazing Friends” that serves as a gateway to the Holland movies and has created a whole new generation of Spider-Man fans.
But none of this means anything if “Brand New Day” is a bad movie, and the sequel — which enlisted “Shang-Chi” director Destin Daniel Cretton to take over the franchise from Jon Watts — earned the best reviews of the franchise since “Homecoming.” Holland admitted in interviews that his experience working with Christopher Nolan on “The Odyssey” inspired him to push the “Brand New Day” team further when he arrived on set (“Challengers” scribe Justin Kuritzkes was brought on for rewrites).
The question then becomes, what does this mean for the superhero genre as a whole, as other Marvel movies and “Supergirl” underperform? Is superhero fatigue real, or is it just “bad movie fatigue?” And does the record-breaking performance of “Brand New Day” boost December’s “Avengers: Doomsday?”
All good questions without easy answers, but consider this: People love Tom Holland, Zendaya and Jacob Batalon. People love the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies. And the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies require zero “homework” other than having seen the previous three films, which most audiences have. It’s possible the recipe for this gangbusters “Brand New Day” opening is that simple.
Now, on to the rest as we dig even deeper into the “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” box office, unveil a new “Heat 2” scoop, unpack the future of video game movies and more in this week’s newsletter.
Box Office: ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Makes History With $932 Million Global Opening
Sony/Marvel Studios’ “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” is on the cusp of even more box office history as it has rocketed to the second-highest global opening weekend of all time with a stunning $927 million global gross, including an estimated $360 million domestic launch.
That means Tom Holland’s fourth “Spider-Man” film surpassed the $357 million opening of the 2019 Marvel spectacular “Avengers: Endgame” for the all-time domestic record “Endgame” will retain the global record with a $1.22 billion worldwide start.
The new box office record comes with the caveat that its total includes Wednesday early access screenings for Prime Video members that “Endgame” did not have, as well as a Thursday preview period that began at noon rather than the 6 p.m. start for “Avengers.”
But that scarcely diminishes the magnitude of what this film has achieved in a theatrical landscape that has been dramatically changed by a global pandemic, an industry strike, and new audience interests and viewing habits. Between the struggles of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the theatrical industry at large to bring moviegoers back to theaters, the $260 million domestic/$600 million opening of the nostalgia-fueled “Spider-Man: No Way Home” in 2021 seemed like a post-COVID bar that might never be cleared.
Instead, the world’s love of Spider-Man, and specifically of Tom Holland’s version of Spider-Man, has come through in a way that exceeded even the wildest hopes and expectations. On top of that, reception scores are only slightly below the sky-high scores of “No Way Home,” including an A on CinemaScore, a 98% Rotten Tomatoes audience score, and an 88% “definite recommend” return on PostTrak.
Between those scores, a light August release slate, and this huge start, “Brand New Day” is very likely to become the eighth film in history and the first non-“Avengers” Marvel film to gross $2 billion worldwide, setting a very high bar for “Avengers: Doomsday” to top for the title of highest grossing movie of 2026 when it comes out this holiday season.
Overseas, the film’s international haul includes a remarkable $121 million 5-day opening in China, showing the resiliency of Spider-Man’s popularity in China even though “No Way Home” was not approved by the country’s film board for a theatrical release five years ago.
Meanwhile, Universal/Syncopy’s “The Odyssey” held very well in the face of this historic competition, adding $51 million domestic and $136.2 million worldwide in its third weekend. While it could not maintain the 27% domestic and 3% overseas drop posted last weekend, it still held its drop to a respectable 43% domestic and 38% overseas as its totals now stand at $395 million in North America and $911 million worldwide.
That puts “The Odyssey” roughly on the same pace as the 2022 box office hit “Top Gun: Maverick,” a film that reached just shy of $1.5 billion worldwide. As “The Odyssey” prepares to pass the $1 billion mark next weekend, it remains on track to become the highest-grossing R-rated film ever before inflation adjustment. – Jeremy Fuster
The Spotlight
How did “Heat 2” end up at Amazon MGM Studios? In Drew Taylor and Umberto Gonzalez’s exclusive story, it’s a twisty tale worthy of Michael Mann’s crime epic, as the project shifted from Warner Bros. to Paramount/Sony to Amazon all in a matter of months. Get the inside intrigue over the budget, executive maneuvering and David Ellison’s reversal. Read the full story here.
New Releases
Why ‘Brand New Day’ Swung High: Get an even deeper dive into Sony’s successful “Spider-Man” launch courtesy of Jeremy Fuster, with Tom Rothman’s insight.
How Nolan Shot ‘The Odyssey’ in Imax: Here’s the inside story into the 20-year friendship that resulted in Christopher Nolan shooting “The Odyssey” entirely on Imax.
Video Game Movies’ Future: The video game industry imploded over the last several months, but it may not be bad news for Hollywood, Kayla Cobb reports.
‘SOULM8TE’ Rescued: How does the director of “SOULM8TE” feel after her “M3GAN 2.0” spinoff was put in limbo after the sequel bombed? Drew Taylor asked her.
AI Copyright Risk Detector: Roger Cheng tested out and reported back on a tool that purports to tell you how at-risk your AI-created image/pitch is to copyright infringement.
HFPA’s Awards Drama Part Deux: Steve Pond and A.J. Katz unpack the HFPA’s lawsuit against Penske Media that accuses the Globes, Variety, Deadline and THR owner of rigging the system.
Concession Stand
Christopher Nolan explained his “real problem” with film criticism today in a fascinating and hard-hitting “Odyssey” interview with a Chinese academic.
A “Barbie” sequel is stalled at WB over contracts with Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling and Greta Gerwig. And the clock is ticking before Mattel gets the rights back.
Netflix is being sued for $105 million after hard drives containing an unreleased Nicolas Cage movie — which they were checking out to see if they’d want to release it — were stolen.
The author of “Children of Blood and Bone,” Tomi Adeyemi, says she left the Paramount film adaptation’s set “hyperventilating and sobbing” before she cut ties with the project altogether.
Speaking of Paramount, “Happy Death Day” filmmaker Christopher Landon will adapt “The Final Girls Support Group” for the studio.
And now for a special Marvel news breakdown:
- It looks like Samara Weaving is Emma Frost in Marvel’s “X-Men” reboot
- Mahershala Ali says his “Blade” movie is dead.
- Tom Holland already knows how his Spider-Man tenure will end.
- William Bibbiani ranked every Spider-Man movie villain. Yep! Every. Single. One.
Streaming Corner
- The Kevin Hart comedy “72 Hours,” which stars a cadre of “SNL” stars in Marcello Hernández, Kam Patterson and Ben Marshall, debuted with 22.1 million views in its first weekend on the platform. That’s a solid debut, and further shows Hart as a reliable draw for Netflix subscribers after the success of films “Lift” and “Fatherhood” and, of course, his recent roast.
What I’m Watching
“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” is the most thematically interesting and mature installment in the Holland franchise so far, but I came away from the film with a lot of admiration for Destin Daniel Cretton. This looks like a real movie, and while it zips by with a lot of energy and fun banter (Holland and Jon Bernthal are a delight), there’s a weight given to the dramatic scenes where you can see the director of “Short Term 12” and “Just Mercy” shine through. That would be enough, but then Cretton’s approach to the film’s action — with slo-mo used to showcase splash pages and relish in the “how cool!” of it all — is inspired. Good stuff.
