Spider-Man beats the Avengers: new Spidey breaks box office records

“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” opened at the box office in such a way that old records fell one after another — including the all-time box office record for the first weekend, which was held for 19 years by “Avengers: Final». After a month in theaters, the film is still not slowing down.

Spider vs. «Final»

On August 1, they came to see Tom Holland in a Spider costume so that North American cinemas collected $168 million in one day — that’s about 14.3 billion rubles at the current exchange rate, xrust is surprised. The previous first-day box office record was held by Avengers: Endgame with $157 million, which has stood since 2019.

The Spider didn't stop there. According to the results of the first weekend, the box office increased to 360.1 million dollars (about 30.6 billion rubles) — and this is already officially the best start in the history of home rentals, surpassing the same “Final” record of 357 million. It’s interesting that until Monday the numbers were being clarified: at first they called 355 million, and it was unclear whether the film would reach the absolute record or remain second. I made it.

Only “Final” is faster

The global start was even more impressive — $932 million, this is the second result in the entire history of film distribution (almost 79 billion rubles). Only Avengers: Endgame itself surpassed Spider here, which in 2019 collected 1.2 billion in the first three days.

The new film surpassed a billion dollars worldwide on its sixth day of release — the second fastest result in history after the same «Endgame». For comparison, none of Holland's three previous Spidey films even came close to that pace. At home in North America, Brand New Day became the fastest film to cross the 400 million mark, taking just four days.

Record on record

More to come. The Monday release brought in $47 million at the box office, the best Monday opening in domestic box office history, surpassing 2018's Black Panther with $40 million. On Tuesday, Spidey collected 42 million and again rewrote the record — this time of its colleague in the universe, “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” which had 39 million.

Seven days were enough for Brand New Day to become the highest-grossing film of 2026, overtaking Toy Story 5. By the end of the month, as of August 28, the counter already showed $869.3 million domestically and $2.24 billion worldwide. In rubles this is a little more than 190 billion, an amount comparable to the budget of a small region.

Where did this effect come from

Formally, this is already the fourth solo film about Spidey with Holland, but plot-wise it’s an attempt to start all over again. Four years after the events of No Way Home, Peter Parker lives alone, having voluntarily erased himself from the memories of his loved ones, including girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), and fighting crime in a city that no longer recognizes him. The load is so great that the hero begins an unexpected physical transformation — and meanwhile one of the most dangerous opponents of his entire career appears on the stage. The cast also includes Sadie Sink, Jon Bernthal, Mark Ruffalo, Lisa Colon-Sayas and Tramell Tillman.

In itself, the return of the franchise to the “lonely superhero without the same team” format is a risky move: studios are usually afraid of scaring off the audience by changing the usual formula, which has been regularly selling tickets for years. Usually, the closer to the end of the trilogy, the more carefully the producers handle changes — a comfortable sequel with the usual set of characters is easier to sell than a story where the hero is defiantly left alone. But in the case of “Brand New Day,” the bet on an emotional reboot clearly played a plus, not a minus: the audience seemed to miss not so much Peter’s usual command, but the feeling that the hero had something to lose.

A separate question is the reaction of the audience itself. On social networks, the film is mainly praised for its darker and more adult tone compared to the previous parts of the trilogy: users note that the hero’s physical transformation does not look like just another twist for the sake of twist, but as a logical continuation of the theme of loneliness and the price that a superhero pays without the support of loved ones. Film critics are generally favorable, although they note that for viewers who did not closely follow the previous Spidey films, some of the emotional moves may be weaker to read.

Industry reaction

Box office analysts took the records almost as confirmation that the theatrical distribution crisis that has been talked about for the past few years is finally receding. The head of Rentrak's market analytics department, Paul Dergarabedian, connected Spider's success with the general mood of the summer: according to him, such a strong start sets the tone for the whole of August and significantly increases the chances that the summer season at the box office will surpass the $4 billion mark, and the year as a whole — $10 billion, which has not happened since pre-pandemic 2019.

So far, these forecasts look realistic: from May to early August, North American cinemas have already collected $3.579 billion, and this does not take into account heavyweights like “Dune 3” and “Avengers: Judgment Day”, which are still ahead. Box office forecasting services give Brand New Day's final North American result a range of $907 million to $982 million, and a broader estimate of up to $1.02 billion.

For Russian viewers, this story looks a little different: after the withdrawal of major Hollywood studios from domestic distribution in 2022, blockbusters such as “Brand New Day” are not officially released in Russian cinemas. Nevertheless, interest in the franchise has not gone away — the previous installments about Spider with Holland were consistently among the most discussed premieres even without an official release, and the new film is already being actively searched for online in parallel with its theatrical triumph in the West.

How it looks against the background of Spider's story

If we compare all the incarnations of Spider-Man on screen, the gap is curious. Sam Raimi's original 2002 Spider-Man ended up grossing $404 million domestically, modest by today's standards. “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” with Andrew Garfield stopped at 202.9 million. Even the first two films in Holland's trilogy, Coming Home and Far From Home, had opening weekends of 117 million and 92.6 million, respectively. “No Way Home” already in 2021 hit a then-record 260 million over the weekend – and now “Brand New Day” has surpassed even this figure by almost a third.

In fact, over the course of 24 years, the franchise has grown from a modest superhero movie into an attraction of a federal scale, which alone is capable of pulling out the box office figures of an entire summer season. It is also curious that the record is set by the fourth actor in the Spider-suit in more than twenty years — and only Holland managed to bring the franchise to a level that was previously occupied only by The Avengers with an entire cast of superheroes, and not just one character.

For Sony itself, this is a particularly pleasant result: the studio shared the rights to the character with Marvel and Disney for many years, and it was this version of Spidey that was called into question several times due to negotiations between the companies. The current commercial result actually removes all doubts about the feasibility of further joint projects.

What's next

Distributors are now watching whether the film will reach the all-time record for the final box office in North America — currently it is The Force Awakens with $936.7 million. If analysts’ forecasts are confirmed, “Spider” has every chance of taking this title. For Sony and Marvel, this will mean not just a successful release, but confirmation that the formula with a lone hero without a familiar team can work even better than comfortable sequels.

There are still several potential contenders for records ahead of the autumn release — but they will have to compete with the summer phenomenon with an eye on the bar that the Spider has raised. If previously studios focused on the performance of “Avengers: Endgame” as the ceiling of the genre, now it is “Brand New Day” that becomes the new reference point for any superhero release — and, probably, every new high-profile start will be compared with it in the next couple of years.

Sources: variety.com, variety.com, boxofficewatch.com

Xrust Spider-Man beats the Avengers: new Spidey broke box office records