UPDATE 2: The crown FELL. Monday’s actuals came in at $360 million, past Endgame‘s $357.1 million, officially making Brand New Day the biggest opening in box office history, with Sunday’s $88.7 million actual delivering the knockout.
UPDATE: The worldwide number landed, and it’s historic. Brand New Day posted a $927 million global debut, the second-biggest ever behind only Endgame‘s $1.2 billion, with a $2 billion run now in sight.
Two million dollars. That’s what’s left of Avengers: Endgame‘s crown.
Sony and Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: Brand New Day opened to an estimated $355 million this weekend, per Deadline’s Sunday update, the second-biggest debut in the history of the domestic box office and barely $2 million behind Endgame‘s all-time $357.1 million.
And it isn’t over.
The record now comes down to actual Sunday business, with Deadline reporting some rivals believe a 15 percent Sunday dip pushes the opening to $358 million to $360 million-plus, past Endgame. Sunday is currently penciled in at $84.2 million. Monday’s actuals decide it.
Saturday came in at $101.5 million, the second-best Saturday ever behind Endgame‘s $109.2 million.
Whatever Monday brings, Sony’s own record book is already rewritten.
Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s $260.1 million, the studio’s previous best, just got beaten by nearly $100 million.
It’s also the biggest opening ever for Zendaya, Jon Bernthal, and director Destin Daniel Cretton, whose previous high was Shang-Chi‘s $75.3 million, and Tom Holland’s second-best behind only Endgame itself.
24 Million People Bought A Ticket
Here’s the number that matters more than the dollars: 24.1 million moviegoers attended this weekend, per EntTelligence, the biggest crowd ever counted in the firm’s tracking era going back to October 2020, past No Way Home‘s previous record of 20 million.
That’s not ticket-price inflation dressed up as a record. That’s four million more actual human beings than the previous high of the modern era.
EntTelligence also corrected the presale figure everyone had been working with. Brand New Day didn’t have $80 million in advance sales, it had $150 million by Thursday, nearly double what was reported when the presales were already breaking five-year records.
No IMAX, New Records Anyway
Brand New Day did all of this without a single domestic IMAX screen, and the other premium formats feasted on the overflow.
Dolby Cinema posted the biggest opening weekend in the format’s history, with 177 sites pulling in $10 million-plus at a record $56,000 per-screen average, and nearly two-thirds of Dolby’s tickets were sold before Thursday previews even started.
ScreenX, the format the movie was actually shot for, delivered $7 million, with 4DX adding $5.2 million. All in, premium large formats drove 24 percent of the weekend and 3D another 17 percent, while the masses filled the 2D houses.
An assist came from the weather. A brutal heat wave across the West, South, and Central states sent the masses into air conditioning, with Las Vegas hitting 115 degrees Saturday, Phoenix 116, and El Centro, California at 118. Regal Irvine Spectrum finished as the movie’s top venue in the country at $604,000.
Sony Takes The Victory Lap
Sony Motion Pictures boss Tom Rothman told Deadline the creative brain trust of Kevin Feige, Amy Pascal, and a heavily involved Tom Holland knew there was no topping the three-Spider-Man spectacle of No Way Home, “so we said let’s go deeper. Let’s do something different.” The result was a character-driven story inside the spectacle.
In his Sunday statement, Rothman reached for It’s a Wonderful Life, invoking Clarence’s famous note to George Bailey about friendship and framing Brand New Day as a movie about connection and hope that united audiences worldwide in troubled times.
Pascal, who set the entire Spider-Man franchise in motion at Columbia, credited audiences for embracing Cretton’s emotional swing and said the response proves moviegoers want stories that are spectacular and deeply human at the same time, never losing sight of Peter Parker’s humanity.
Feige called the opening phenomenal, credited the enduring connection between Marvel’s characters and their fans, and teased that the film sets up what’s coming next. Anyone who has seen the ending knows exactly what he means, and the SPOILER breakdown is here.
Worth noting: Rothman is one of the few studio bosses who never stopped betting on theatrical, to the point that Sony took over the Covid-dormant Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles for a 2028 grand reopening.
This weekend, the bet paid off with the biggest crowd of the modern era. The audience agreed with the product, too, matching the A CinemaScore, the record-tying 98% audience score, and CBN’s own 9/10 review.
The Odyssey Kept Every IMAX Screen And It Shows
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey confirmed its $51 million third weekend, down 43 percent against the biggest opening in history, the best third frame of Nolan’s career and the follow-up to his best second weekend ever.
The running total sits at $395.5 million, crossing $400 million within days, with Deadline’s outlook now at a half billion domestic, which would rank second in Nolan’s career behind The Dark Knight‘s $534 million.
And here’s the receipt on the format war: the IMAX screens The Odyssey retained delivered $22.1 million this weekend, a massive 43 percent of the movie’s gross, pushing its IMAX cume to $121 million, already the third-highest IMAX domestic total ever.
One movie kept the format and rode it to historic holds. The other went without it and nearly took Endgame‘s crown. Both won, which is worth remembering when the fatigue eulogies start back up.
The all-time record weekend for the overall marketplace is locked either way, blowing past the $402 million benchmark set during Endgame‘s opening in 2019.
Now everything waits on Monday’s actuals: Endgame keeps the crown by $2 million, or Spidey takes everything.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now playing in theaters. Follow every number at the Spider-Man: Brand New Day hub.
