[#item_full_content] [[{“value”:”The Gist
“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” could break the record for biggest domestic opening weekend box office.
Spider-Man perseveres where other superhero properties have sputtered.
It raises questions about the direction of the MCU; there are just two movies on the calendar through 2027.
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The latest Spider-Man movie is about to earn in its opening weekend more than the three previous MCU movies did in theirs combined.
No matter what the online shills say, this is not proof that “superhero fatigue” isn’t real — merely that Spider-Man is in a league of his own. Aside for a few key characters and major event movies, there’s certainly, at the very least, superhero indifference, as I noted a few weeks ago.
Regardless, “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” is, as of now, going to make $355 million just domestically this weekend, the second best opening weekend of all time, slightly behind “Avengers: Endgame’s” $357 million. But that could rise by the time official numbers are released on Monday, meaning it has a real shot at beating “Endgame.” And it is already close to $1 billion worldwide.
I wouldn’t have guessed that a couple months ago. The previous live-action Spidey movie, “No Way Home,” made $260 million domestically in its opening in 2021. That was gigantic, and followed months of speculation about Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield returning to their respective Spider-roles. “Brand New Day” played a similar marketing trick, hiding Sadie Sink’s role that also drummed up plenty of speculation for fans who are rushing to theaters this weekend to avoid spoilers.
But Sadie Sink’s secret role compared to a multiversal Spider-Man team-up? Really? There’s gotta be more to it than that. Of course, it’s been five years since “No Way Home,” so there’s plenty of pent-up demand for Spider-Man. And Tom Holland’s and Zendaya’s star power — both apart and together — has only grown since then. And “No Way Home” was released during the pandemic; surely it would have reached even greater heights if it came out even a year later.
Young people simply love Spider-Man, too. Half of the opening day audience for “Brand New Day” was under 25 years old. In an NRG survey last year, Spider-Man ranked No. 8 for Gen Alpha’s favorite franchises, behind mostly video-game properties. Spider-Verse, separately, ranked No. 13, and 2023’s “Across the Spider-Verse” movie grossed nearly $700 million worldwide.
“Spidey and his Amazing Friends,” popular with toddlers, has been watched for 1.25 billion hours since 2021, according to Nielsen data reported by The Wall Street Journal, making it Marvel’s most popular show. The comic series “Ultimate Spider-Man” issue 24, its finale, was Marvel’s best-selling comic in February. The 2023 video game “Spider-Man 2” was PlayStation Studios’ fastest-selling game in PlayStation history, and has sold at least 17 million copies through February this year.
Spider-Man, in all incarnations across all media, seems to be impervious to the superhero slump. That doesn’t exactly help the rest of the MCU, though.
The next two MCU movies are “Avengers: Doomsday” in December and “Avengers: Secret Wars” next year, which seemingly intend to reset the MCU — call it a brand new day. Or brave new world? Recently, at San Diego Comic-Con, Marvel announced two projects for 2028: “Ghost Rider,” starring Ryan Gosling and directed by “Deadpool and Wolverine” filmmaker Shawn Levy, and “Black Panther III,” with Ryan Coogler returning and David Jonsson joining to play T’Challa’s son.
These hint at two very different directions the franchise could lean into after “Secret Wars”: “safe” and cookie cutter, compared to filmmaker-driven event movies. Based on recent box-office trends, I’d feel better about the latter. That said, if “Ghost Rider” could herald in a new era of lower-budget “genre”-centric MCU movies, maybe that could be interesting (but “lower-budget” isn’t exactly in Marvel’s vocabulary).
At any rate, here’s hoping MCU movies pivot in a similar way as the TV side is doing: fewer, with a focus on “quality” over quantity. With that in mind, let’s look at the recent cancellation of “Wonder Man” after it was initially renewed for a second season. I previously wrote how that surprised me:
In its first week, it was watched for 618 million minutes in the US, according to Nielsen, which would equate to less than 3 million viewers, roughly (it’s an imperfect science, dividing the minutes viewed by the combined run time. But it’s the best we’ve got). Hit shows on other platforms that don’t have Marvel attached to their name, like Amazon’s “Fallout,” get triple those numbers.
I also asked what Marvel’s metric of success was now…and it appears we have an answer. A lot of people online are questioning the MCU’s actions regarding characters of color in light of this cancellation, and granted, it’s not a great look given Don Cheadle’s “Armor Wars” was shelved, “Blade” isn’t happening, “Ironheart” was dumped, etc. But the facts remain: not a lot of people watched “Wonder Man,” and it follows a troubling trend of Marvel’s other shows underperforming (we’re not seeing new seasons of “Moon Knight,” “She-Hulk,” etc. any time soon it seems). I also see these more as (disheartening) coincidences than any perceived bias. Marvel is pulling back from unnecessary projects all around.
And yes, you can argue that “Daredevil: Born Again” should be canceled by this logic if “Wonder Man” was: Season two viewership was reportedly down 50% from season one. But Daredevil is simply a more important character to Marvel than Wonder Man, carrying his own comics and now joining the Avengers (sorry to the Wonder Man fans).
Anyway, I’ll end as I began: “Brand New Day” is already a massive hit. But it reminds me of Pixar in a way (yes, I know Spidey film rights are controlled by Sony rather than Disney): Marvel’s biggest hits also remind us that it has trouble elsewhere.
No recommendations or news round up today. I’ll be back soon. Thanks for reading!
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