[#item_full_content] [[{“value”:”It’s… just… a movie?
Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: Brand New Day will cross $900 million in North America today, on its 36th day of domestic release. Having already pulled a 2.5x multiplier from its record-breaking $360 million domestic debut, it will likely end the summer with a sixth chart-topping weekend. That will make it the first (not counting the unofficial battle between The Wretched and Trolls: World Tour in summer 2020) release to do so since Avatar: The Way of Water ruled for seven straight weekends in late 2022/early 2023. In at least the post-Batman era, it’s the first time a non-November (1990’s Home Alone) or December (2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, 2009’s Avatar, 1997’s Titanic) release has topped at least six consecutive or non-consecutive weekends at the box office since The Fugitive in August and September of 1993.
Sony’s Marvel Cinematic Universe-affiliated Peter Parker passion play is likely to pass Star Wars VII’s $937 million domestic cume as the top North American earner ever. Even accounting for inflation, its likely over/under $945 million final cume will rank among the 20 biggest “tickets sold” releases in box office history. Tom Holland and Zendaya’s latest web-slinging romantic melodrama has sold more domestic tickets than the initial releases for the likes of Home Alone, Jurassic Park, Independence Day, The Phantom Menace, Spider-Man, The Dark Knight and (once it passes around $920 million) both The Avengers and Jurassic World. In terms of global grosses, it now sits at $2.35 billion, good for third place, behind only Avengers: Endgame ($2.8 billion, with an “Encore” arriving in three weeks) and Avatar ($2.9 billion, counting reissues).
This, despite it not necessarily being a singular event akin to the finale of the MCU’s “Infinity Saga,” is the first outright sequel to Star Wars in 33 years, or a kind of multigenerational “all the Spider-Men all in one place” nostalgic event. Nor is it either the long-awaited (and relatively awesome) first sequel to a singular sensation like Avatar (globally) or Ne Zha 2 (in China specifically) or a kind of “Holy shit, James Cameron lived up to the hype!” triumph like Titanic or the first Avatar. It was explicitly sold as, and warmly embraced as, “just another Tom Holland/Zendaya Spider-Man movie.” As such, any notion that the blow-out performance for Spider-Man: Brand New Day means all that much about the overall health of the DC/Marvel superhero industrial complex is, well, incorrect.
It is still highly probable that Disney and Marvel’s upcoming Avengers: Doomsday will pull grosses somewhere between The Last Airbender Avatar: Fire and Ash ($1.45 billion) and Avatar: The Way of Water ($2.32 billion) when it opens alongside WB and Legendary’s Dune Part Three on December 18. Barring it actually being Quantumania-level terrible, the big question will be to what extent its commercial success translates into renewed audience goodwill toward what’s become a clearly oversaturated franchise. However, even if Spider-Man 4 and Avengers 5 earn a combined over/under $4.75 billion globally, that does not mean the DC/Marvel Industrial Complex is reborn. Avengers movies were events even for audiences that don’t otherwise follow the MCU. More importantly, Spider-Man has long been an A+ butts-in-seats movie star even for those otherwise indifferent to superhero movies.
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