This has been a terrific year for movie theaters. Cinemas are on course for their best financial year since before the coronavirus pandemic, powered by large-scale hits such as The Odyssey and surprise small-budget smashes, particularly Obsession and Backrooms. Fears about the decline of the big-screen experience amid the rise of at-home streaming seem to have begun dissipating. But one theatrical stalwart is showing serious signs of weakness: the superhero movie, which helped keep blockbusters afloat for most of the 2010s. Marvel’s most anticipated title last year, The Fantastic Four: First Steps—which reintroduced the fan-favorite comic-book team—failed to meet the studio’s lofty expectations; this June’s DC Comics adaptation of Supergirl was an out-and-out bomb.
By those metrics, one might have predicted a similar slump for this summer’s new Spider-Man sequel, subtitled Brand New Day. Instead, it has broken nearly every box-office record imaginable.
That the film has been able to defy mounting superhero fatigue may seem unexpected. After all, Brand New Day is the fourth Spider-Man entry set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which owns the rights to the character; it’s Tom Holland’s seventh time playing the character. Whereas its predecessor, 2021’s No Way Home, sold itself on bringing back heroes and villains from prior Spider-Man entries, Brand New Day promised a general reset. Its story also feels smaller, the action confined to the hero’s hometown of New York City, where he faces off with more street-level villains. Given the public’s declining appetite for the MCU—long gone are the days when an installment starring a relatively unknown character could make more than $1 billion worldwide—Brand New Day’s streamlined focus seemed like an audience gamble.
Not so: The movie earned $360 million domestically during its opening weekend, shattering a record set by Avengers: Endgame in 2019. Endgame was the grand conclusion of Marvel’s initial saga, featuring Spider-Man alongside every other popular character in the company’s wheelhouse. Yet Brand New Day, with its far less cataclysmic stakes, could be the first-ever film to make $1 billion in the United States and Canada alone; if it doesn’t break the all-time worldwide box-office record held by Avatar ($2.9 billion), it will at least come close. Its popularity is proof that for some costumed do-gooders, the exhaustion with superheroes just doesn’t apply. Maybe the simplest rule of thumb is that although audiences are losing interest in most comic-book adaptations, Spider-Man will always endure.
He initially set a famous box-office milestone back in 2002, when Spider-Man—the character’s major-feature debut, starring Tobey Maguire—grossed more than $110 million domestically during its opening weekend. Since then, even as other actors have assumed the role (including Andrew Garfield and an animated version voiced by Shameik Moore), Spider-Man has remained the most consistent of comic-book movie stars. Sony, which owns the film rights to the Spider-Man franchise, has attempted to build offshoot storylines that don’t feature him but has consistently failed; though the Venom trilogy did well enough, the spin-offs Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter were commercial failures. (Critics hated all of them too.) Yet Spider-Man himself has proved indestructible to theatergoers: The 11 films in which he stars have made nearly $11 billion worldwide.
Brand New Day’s colossal success can’t just be attributed to the hero’s appeal, however. The genius of the co-creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s comic-book invention was that he was more grounded and familiar than DC Comics’ godlike figures, such as Superman and Wonder Woman, or the multibillionaire Batman. Spider-Man, in his original incarnation, was really just a nerdy teen named Peter Parker who readers could relate to, and the installments starring Holland have replicated that zippy, youthful energy. Spider-Man’s brand has also been savvily extended to fans of all ages: Projects such as the wildly popular cartoon Spidey and His Amazing Friends appeal to preschoolers, featuring villains including the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus downgraded from homicidal to simply mischievous; the studio Insomniac Games’ three video games focused on the character are best sellers.
Beyond that, the star power of Holland and Zendaya, who plays Spider-Man’s girlfriend, MJ, is on a level few other young actors can claim. They both feature in the summer’s other biggest hit, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, and although they largely keep their real-life relationship private, it adds to the authenticity of their romance on-screen. Zendaya in particular has proved exceptionally good at getting young viewers to show up for more daring movies, such as this spring’s The Drama; comparatively, something as broadly crowd-pleasing as Brand New Day is a layup.
The film’s achievements will likely not be taken for granted. Marvel’s next movie, Avengers: Doomsday, will be released in December and stands to benefit from the hype around Brand New Day. The studio is also soft-rebooting the franchise following next year’s Avengers: Secret Wars, in part by leaning on another well-known superhero team—the X-Men, one of whom is deployed as Brand New Day’s surprise antagonist. The industry will probably never return to producing the relentless glut of comic-book adaptations that buttressed the past decade-plus in Hollywood—which is a good thing, because a diversity of genres and cinematic experiences is the wisest thing to have on offer. Perhaps Brand New Day could kick off a more stable new phase for superheroes. No matter what, Spider-Man will keep on swinging.
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