How Spider-Man: Brand New Day Became the Biggest Debut in Box-Office History

At the outset of Sony’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day, anyone who ever met, knew, or loved Peter Parker has had every vestige of him magically wiped from their memories (this being a bid to prevent multiversal collapse that also wreaks havoc on the Queens-dwelling enhanced human’s personal life; it’s complicated). Over the movie’s opening weekend in theaters, however, audiences showed no such amnesia. The ninth live-action Spider-Man installment grossed a superheroic $360 million in North America and web-slung to a breathtaking $932 million worldwide. Not only did it eclipse prerelease “tracking” estimates that had it doing about $195 million domestically, SM:BND beat 2019’s monolithic Avengers: Endgame to become the biggest debut in box-office history.

With Brand New Day also comes the dawn of a slew of new records for Sony’s 24-year-old franchise. Brand New Day more than toppled Spider-Man: No Way Home’s $260 million opening haul in 2021 — the franchise’s previous biggest start — and also surpassed the $168 million record set by Avengers: Endgame for opening day and previews. Moreover, SM:BND bumped Toy Story 5 out of the re-creation chest as 2026’s top opener and delivered the biggest-ever hit for Sony, which has been the theatrical distributor for Spidey features — including two animated Spider-Verse titles that cumulatively grossed more than $1 billion — since 2002.

Brand New Day was directed by Daniel Destin Cretton (the indie auteur behind “good cry” drama Short Term 12 and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) and co-produced by Marvel Cinematic Universe architect Kevin Feige and former Sony chairwoman Amy Pascal, who has been inextricably linked with Spider-Man since the studio licensed the character from then-struggling Marvel Comics in 1999 (first as a studio exec and later as a producer). It cost a reported $225 million to produce, not including an additional $125 million to $150 million for marketing. Arriving amid a summer when financial underperformance by DC’s Supergirl revived the cultural conversation around superhero fatigue, Brand New Day also snaps a box-office cold streak for co-producer Marvel Studios.

Sony’s motion picture group CEO Tom Rothman has overseen the movie series since 2015 when he replaced Pascal as studio chairman. Over the weekend, he talked Vulture through the studio’s “scarcity” mind-set for Spider-Man — its “crown jewel” — and the concrete steps Sony has been taking to not screw up the franchise.

In a recent interview, Destin Daniel Cretton recalled having a conversation with you about keeping this Spider-Man “grounded.” The last movie had crazy stuff going on with the multiverse, multiple Spider-Men, and rips in the space-time continuum. But on this one you didn’t go big. Why?
That was a conscious decision. First of all, we’ve been working on the movie for five years. There was an evolution. Tom Holland was very involved and his instincts are superb. But you put your finger right on it: The last one was big in the biggest sense of all, in that there were three Spider-Men in it. We all felt — Kevin Feige, Amy Pascal, Tom, myself, and Destin when he joined — that it would be a mistake just to try to go bigger for bigger’s sake.

You know what I’ve learned after many years in this game? The audience doesn’t care how much a movie costs. They don’t care about all the razzle-dazzle. They care about what it makes them feel. So we decided instead of going bigger to go deeper. To go more emotional. More character driven. And I think that’s what the audience is responding to. 

The Hollywood Reporter recently called Spider-Man “the Last Blockbuster Franchise Hollywood Hasn’t Screwed Up.” This doesn’t happen by accident. So let me ask you: 11 Spider-Man movies in, what has Sony done to not screw it up?
A lot. Amy Pascal has, in one way or the other, been on Spider-Man from the beginning. I give a lot of credit to Kevin Feige, who genuinely loves Spider-Man. But in honesty, I give us some credit too.

We’re very careful. Spider-Man is Sony’s most precious crown jewel. And we treat it with that level of respect. I think that you can see it. We have two incarnations right now: Tom’s and Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s Spider-Verse trilogy. With Destin, these are A-triple-plus filmmakers. So we get in business and stay in business with the best talent in the world. That’s the first thing.

Another thing: We know and are quite conscious that scarcity has value. We’re very careful not to overexpose the character. It’s been five years since the last movie. Admittedly, the strike had a lot to do with that. Maybe we would have gone forward without the strike. But we don’t rush any of these things. We make them really good. And we concentrate really hard on the scripts before we make the movies.

Was there a creative avenue that you explored going down with this sequel that you ultimately abandoned in trying to safeguard your precious jewel IP?
There were a number of starts in different directions. One of the key things in development was — and it’s often the case in movies like this — getting a really compelling villain is hard to do. This movie has a very unconventional structure with respect to the villain. She’s not a villain at all. She’s actually a victim. In the end, Spider-Man’s heroism isn’t in defeating the villain. It’s, in a way, emotionally rescuing the villain. And I don’t think you’re going to find that structure, typically.

So not screwing up Spider-Man is about putting a beating heart at the center rather than a bunch of spectacle.
One hundred percent. And that’s hard to do! With big, epic cinema, that’s hard to do.

The second-weekend hold for The Odyssey was very strong. It only dropped off 30 percent from its opening. How nervous were you going up against The Odyssey’s weekend three? There’s a scenario where it eats Spider-Man’s lunch. 
Of course, we pay great attention to the marketplace. That’s part of the fun of our jobs: We’re not playing against ourselves, we’re playing against the competition, right? But there is an old belief that any old movie distribution guy will tell you — and it has been borne out in a big way this summer — which is that a rising tide lifts all boats. People go to the movies. They have a good time. They are reminded how fun it is. So they’re excited to go again. It’s great that there are these two, big, rewarding, fun theatrical experiences. I think overall, it turned out to be a great help.

And they just so happened to both feature Tom Holland and Zendaya! On the flipside, the Spider-Man spinoffs have not been so successful for Sony. Venom did great business. But not Kraven the Hunter, Morbius, or Madame Web. Why do you think that is? 
At the time with those movies, I think there was a bit of oversaturation. Right now, movies have got to be great. If the movie is great — I mean great for an audience — you’ve got a good chance to succeed. If not, you don’t. It’s kind of as simple as that. The theatrical marketplace demands greatness. It’s like, If it’s only okay I can get it at home.

I understand these Spider-Man sequels are done on a film-by-film basis. Tom has publicly discussed passing the character to another actor in a future sequel. But there’s no grand MCU architecture. And from what I know, there is no deal in place for a next Spider-Man. But given how massive this one is, those conversations must already be starting. What can you tell me about the prognosis?
You’re asking the question they ask right after the team wins the AFC championship: What’s your game plan for the Super Bowl? We just won the game! Can’t we just go back to the locker room and have some fun? All I would say to you is, of course, we would have every hope that we could get the band back together again.

But just like what happened with this one, it will have to be really great. I know that everybody who worked on this has the hope that we can achieve greatness again.