UPDATE: The projections have only grown. Deadline now forecasts a $465 million global opening, which would be the second-biggest in Sony history, with NRG seeing $195 million domestic and rival studios whispering closer to $250 million.
The 2026 box office has been wall-to-wall bad news, but Spider-Man is about to change the conversation. Spider-Man: Brand New Day debuted on three-week tracking Thursday with projections pointing to a $180 million to $190 million domestic opening, per Deadline.
If that number holds, the Tom Holland sequel delivers the biggest opening of 2026, clearing the $159.6 million debut of Toy Story 5, and lands the second-biggest opening in Spider-Man franchise history behind only 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home at $260.1 million.
For context, No Way Home still owns the second-biggest domestic opening of all time behind the $357.1 million record of Avengers: Endgame, so trailing that pace is no knock on anything.
Best presales since No Way Home
The tracking backs up what the ticket sites have been screaming for weeks.
As we covered, Brand New Day posted the best first-day presales in the five years since No Way Home, and Deadline notes advance sales currently trail only that film.
The movie also registered the highest interest of any summer release when the first surveys hit, so none of this is coming out of nowhere.
No IMAX, no problem
Brand New Day is doing all of this while locked out of IMAX, as those auditoriums belong to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey in a three-week booking.
The Destin Daniel Cretton film still gets every other premium large format, and for comparison, Nolan’s epic is tracking for an $80 million to $100 million start with all of those IMAX screens. Spidey could nearly double that without a single one.
The under-25 male audience is back
Here is the number every studio executive should be staring at. Per Deadline, first choice for Brand New Day trails only No Way Home and runs ahead of Deadpool & Wolverine ($211.4 million opening), Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($187.4 million), The Fantastic Four: First Steps ($117.6 million), and Spider-Man: Far From Home ($92.6 million three-day).
The under-25 male demo is described as huge, ahead of every one of those movies, including No Way Home itself.
So much for superhero fatigue. As we spelled out, the genre’s floor collapsed because the core audience walked away, not because audiences stopped liking superheroes. Supergirl is sitting on a $244 million theatrical loss after Warner Bros. Discovery served up a movie nobody asked for.
Meanwhile, a Spider-Man movie packing the Punisher, a savage Hulk, and a mystery villain fans can’t stop theorizing about has young guys lining up three weeks out. Give the core audience what it wants and it shows up. It’s not complicated.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day opens July 31, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and starring Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jon Bernthal, and Mark Ruffalo. Holland’s Spider-Man next appears in Avengers: Doomsday on December 18.
