Since it opened at the end of July, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has been a box office juggernaut that’s showing no signs of slowing down. Taking full advantage of a relatively quiet August slate, Marvel’s latest has steamrolled the competition en route to a $2 billion worldwide haul. Less than a month into its theatrical run, it’s already broken a multitude of records, and plenty more could be on the way — including an all-time Force Awakens mark that was once thought to be unbreakable. The whopping success of Brand New Day is a testament to the film’s strong legs, and because of those legs, it’s going to pull off another rare box office feat.
According to Variety, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is estimated to earn between $35-40 million domestically this weekend, which would be more than enough to retain the No. 1 position on the chart for four straight weekends. Assuming Brand New Day performs in line with these projections, it would be the first Marvel movie since 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever to lead the domestic box office for at least four consecutive weekends. Wakanda Forever held on to its spot for five straight weekends before giving way to Avatar: The Way of Water, which was the No. 1 movie for seven weekends in a row.
In the 2010s, the Marvel Cinematic Universe cemented itself as the biggest franchise in Hollywood with an unprecedented string of box office hits. Not everything was as massive as Spider-Man: Brand New Day, obviously, but the mere thought of an MCU film bombing was unfathomable. However, since Avengers: Endgame, Marvel’s box office track record hasn’t been as steady. There have still been notable hits like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Deadpool & Wolverine, but the latest Marvel release is no longer guaranteed to be a considerable draw. Things came to a head last year when a trio of new MCU movies underwhelmed commercially. Even The Fantastic Four: First Steps didn’t fully meet expectations with $521.8 million worldwide.
With Marvel building towards the culmination of the Multiverse Saga in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, they desperately needed a big box office smash to get things back on track and generate excitement for the franchise again. Brand New Day arrived at the perfect time for Marvel, as Spider-Man is the company’s most popular character. The film was always guaranteed to be one of the biggest of the year; predecessor Spider-Man: No Way Home nearly cracked $2 billion itself while the COVID-19 pandemic was still ongoing. Few could have predicted Brand New Day would be as successful as it’s been, but it wasn’t surprising to see it be an old-school bona fide Marvel blockbuster.
The historic run Brand New Day has been on makes the “superhero fatigue is real” discourse from earlier this summer look silly. However, a Spider-Man movie is not a bellwether for the superhero genre as a whole. The web head is one of a small group of characters that’s immune to any shifting box office trends. A movie starring Spider-Man is going to be a draw regardless of what else is going on in the film industry. He’s a true A-list hero, and the superhero fatigue discussions don’t apply to that tier. This decade, Marvel and DC have had their ups and downs with the B- and C-list characters that headlined massive hits a decade ago.
Brand New Day shattering records seemingly every day is not a guarantee that the Marvel of old is back, but hopefully it establishes some forward momentum that the MCU can ride moving forward. Ticket pre-sales for Avengers: Doomsday are currently outpacing Brand New Day, indicating that Marvel could score another massive, potentially record-breaking opening weekend this holiday season. Avengers is like Spider-Man in that it’s one of the premier Marvel brands that’ll generate significant interest, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see it become one of the highest-grossing films of the year. The real test may come in 2028, when Ghost Rider (a character who isn’t as well-known as Spider-Man) opens. If that film is a big hit, then Marvel will have definitely made it through a rocky period to establish sturdier footing.
