The last domino of the record weekend just fell.
IMAX Corporation officially announced that Spider-Man: Brand New Day expands across the IMAX network in North America beginning Thursday, August 6, with the format’s marketing push and new IMAX poster touting Friday, August 7, and tickets going on sale Tuesday.
IMAX announced it the way you’d expect for the new record holder, telling fans to “pretend you’re not the happiest you’ve ever been in your entire life” alongside a brand-new IMAX poster of Spidey mid-swing with Bernthal’s Punisher in the background.
The Overseas IMAX Numbers Forced The Move
Brand New Day pulled $23 million on IMAX screens in just three markets, China, Japan, and South Korea, the only places it had the format during its record-shattering $360 million domestic and $932 million global debut.
The breakdown, per IMAX: China delivered $19 million, the biggest IMAX opening weekend in Spider-Man franchise history, with the format driving a franchise-best 16 percent of the movie’s opening there.
South Korea set the record for the biggest IMAX opening weekend the market has ever seen, for any movie, at $2.4 million. And Japan added $2.2 million with IMAX accounting for 18 percent of the film’s opening, despite sharing the schedule there.
IMAX boss Rich Gelfond noted the Spider-Man franchise has generated $365 million in IMAX receipts over two decades, and with Brand New Day rewriting the record books, the company expects the format to be “a major driver of both new and repeat viewing.”
The all-time record crowd of 24.1 million people already bought a ticket once. Now the biggest screens in the business are the excuse to go back.
Nolan Keeps The Film Prints
Brand New Day shares select digital IMAX locations in North America with The Odyssey, while Christopher Nolan’s epic continues playing on all 41 IMAX 70mm film locations worldwide.
In other words, Spidey gets the digital network, and the purist format stays Nolan’s, which is fitting given those $50-plus 70mm tickets have been selling out for a month.
The Odyssey sits at $221 million-plus in IMAX global box office, and its own IMAX world tour is just getting started, with South Korea launching August 5, China on August 14, and Japan on September 11.
So the two movies that just powered the biggest overall weekend in box office history will now split the biggest screens instead of fighting over them.
And for the record keepers: the movie that famously opened without a single domestic IMAX screen set the all-time record anyway. The format is arriving for the victory lap, not the rescue.
Marvel’s next IMAX play is already on the calendar too, with the Avengers: Endgame September re-release carrying new Doomsday footage onto IMAX screens ahead of December.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day hits IMAX in North America this week, with tickets on sale Tuesday. Follow every number at the Spider-Man: Brand New Day hub.
