Tom Holland, Zendaya and Jon Bernthal are having a remarkable summer. The latest Spider-Man instalment, Brand New Day, has swung to a colossal $927 million in worldwide ticket sales during its debut weekend, making it the second-largest opening in cinema history.
Holland's fourth outing as Peter Parker has also set a domestic record for the franchise, pulling in $335 million in the United States. According to distributor Sony Pictures, the film earned $572 million from more than 73,500 screens internationally, with China alone contributing $121 million. It now stands as Sony's highest-grossing debut ever.
The only film to have opened bigger is Avengers: Endgame, which took $357 million domestically and over $1.2 billion globally in 2019. To put the numbers in perspective, Brand New Day has already surpassed the total box office of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey—which also stars Holland, Zendaya and Bernthal—after just four days. The Odyssey had amassed $911 million by its third weekend and is expected to cross the billion-dollar mark soon, with releases still to come in South Korea (5 August), China (14 August) and Japan (11 September).
A much-needed boost for Marvel
The success of Brand New Day is hardly a surprise given Spider-Man's track record. Holland's previous film, No Way Home, grossed over $1.9 billion worldwide, making it the eighth-highest-earning movie of all time and the first to cross $1 billion since the pandemic began.
Yet the strong performance arrives at a critical moment for Marvel Studios. The company has faced a string of underperforming and critically lukewarm releases over the past five years, struggling to recapture the audience enthusiasm of the Endgame era. The upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, slated for December, is seen as a make-or-break moment for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Brand New Day's box office haul offers a welcome shot of confidence.
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige called the opening “truly phenomenal” and thanked audiences for “coming out and experiencing our film the way it was meant to be seen.” He added: “This debut reflects the enduring power of Marvel’s characters, and the connection they continue to have with fans around the world - and, as audiences saw, it sets up exciting things to come.”
Producer Amy Pascal said the result “reinforces that moviegoers are hungry for stories that are both spectacular and deeply human.”
In our review of Brand New Day, we noted that director Destin Daniel Cretton, who took over from Jon Watts, “does a great job in committing to the character's comic roots reset, making the stakes believable, and ensuring the emotion matches the spectacle.” We also wrote that despite its shortcomings, the film is “bolstered by consistently strong action sequences and a terrific performance from Holland, who can now safely be crowned the greatest on-screen Spider-Man.”
The film's European appeal is evident, with premieres in London and strong showings across the continent. As the summer blockbuster season continues, Brand New Day is on track to become the highest-grossing movie of 2026, a title that seemed destined for The Odyssey just weeks ago. For Marvel, the message is clear: audiences still care about the wall-crawler, and the studio's future may well depend on keeping him at the centre of its plans.
