For six years, the box office record set by “Avengers: Endgame” sat there like the final boss nobody could beat. $357 million (not adjusted for inflation) in a single domestic weekend. An entire cinematic universe worth of superheroes teaming up to fight a purple guy with a glove, and the resulting number was so absurd that Hollywood quietly accepted it might never fall. Then one guy in a spandex onesie showed up and did it anyway.
“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” opened to $360 million domestically ($360,091,572, to be exact) , which is now officially the biggest debut in the history of movies being a thing. Not adjusted for inflation, not “if you squint,” not “well technically.” Just the largest pile of opening-weekend money ever assembled, and it beat Endgame by roughly three million dollars, which in box office terms is the equivalent of winning a marathon by tripping across the finish line half a second ahead.
Here is the part that should make Endgame nervous about its legacy. These two films are the only movies in all of recorded box office history to cross $300 million in a single weekend. Everything else, every Star Wars, every Jurassic dinosaur, every Barbie in a pink car, tops out around $260 million. Spider-Man and the Avengers are in a two-person club, and Spidey just took the corner office.
Speaking of that club, the four biggest debuts ever now all belong to Marvel Studios, which at this point feels less like a movie studio and more like a machine specifically engineered to make theater owners weep with joy. Behind the two record holders sit 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home” at $260 million and 2018’s “Avengers: Infinity War” at $257 million. Marvel has essentially colonized the leaderboard.
For Tom Holland personally, this is a glow-up of cartoonish proportions. His first solo Spider-Man movie, 2017’s “Homecoming,” opened to $117 million. He has since roughly tripled that, which is the kind of career trajectory that usually only happens to people in montages.
Globally the film pulled in $932 million, the second-biggest worldwide opening ever, which sounds incredible until you remember Endgame did $1.2 billion and is standing in the corner going “so I still hold that one.” Endgame gets to keep exactly one trophy. It is holding onto it very tightly.
Sony Pictures chairman Tom Rothman responded to the news with the appropriate amount of composure, which is to say none. His official statement opened with, quote, “Wow! 360 million thank-yous to all the filmmakers, actors, producers, and to my colleagues at Sony.” Somewhere in an accounting office, a spreadsheet spontaneously combusted from happiness.
One small housekeeping note for the pedants in the back. The $360 million figure comes from Monday’s confirmed actuals, up from Sony’s more modest Sunday projection of $355 million. So the studio somehow lowballed the biggest opening in history by five million dollars, which is a very funny problem to have.
