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Is Spider-Man more powerful than all of the Avengers combined?
There’s certainly a case to be made after “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” captured a mind-boggling, record-setting $360 million in its domestic debut, officially
ranking as the biggest debut in box office history. After landing above Sunday’s estimates of $355 million, “Brand New Day” has outpaced the prior all-time benchmark of 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame” with $357 million (not adjusted for inflation).
“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” and “Avengers: Endgame” are historic as the only two movies in history to cross $300 million in a single weekend. To put those ticket sales in perspective, those behemoths earned around $100 million more to start than the third-and fourth-largest domestic openings, which belong to 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home” with $260 million and 2018’s “Avengers: Infinity War” with $257 million. The top four-biggest debuts in box office history belong to Marvel Studios.
“Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” Sony and Marvel’s fourth comic-book adventure starring Tom Holland as Peter Parker, launched to a truly heroic $932 million globally, a benchmark that few films achieve by the end of their box office runs, much less after three days on the big screen. It’s the second-biggest worldwide debut, trailing only “Avengers: Endgame” with $1.2 billion.
“Wow! 360 million thank-yous to all the filmmakers, actors, producers, and to my colleagues at Sony, who created such a fantastic film and an exceptional marketing and distribution campaign,” says Tom Rothman, chairman of Sony Pictures. “Records are made to be broken, but we will take great pride in this one, for as long as we hold it.”
“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” set all kinds of records in its first weekend of release, including the largest preview haul with $72 million, as well as the biggest opening day with $169.8 million. With euphoric word-of-mouth (and without much competition), this Spidey adventure is poised to dominate on the big screen throughout the rest of summer. It should easily surpass $2 billion globally, a milestone that only seven movies in history have ever achieved.
Destin Daniel Cretton (“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”) directed “Brand New Day,” which picks up after the events of “No Way Home” — which ended with the entire world forgetting about Peter Parker. He’s still fighting crime, though, as a mysterious entity threatens New York City. Busting baddies has been all the more difficult for Spider-Man, not just because he’s sorely missing his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), neither of whom remember he exists, but also because he’s struggling with his mutating powers.
Holland’s run as Spider-Man has been especially impressive as the rare property to keep growing at the box office. His first solo outing 2017’s “Homecoming,” opened to $117 million domestically and climbed to $880 million worldwide. The 2019’s sequel “Far From Home” launched to $92 million domestically and ended with a mighty $1.13 billion worldwide. Then the third adventure “No Way Home” powered to $260 million domestically and ended its run with a colossal with $1.9 billion worldwide. Holland has teased that succession plans are already in the works for Peter Parker, but after this historic weekend, it’s safe to say he’s not retiring just yet.
