We had a pretty good idea it was going to be a pretty good weekend in Culver City, Queens and Tokyo, two of which I’ve called home for good portions of my life and the third very much on my bucket list. We got our first inkling of the potential on Friday morning courtesy of ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY’s Shelby Stivale:
Spider-Man: Brand New Day made a small fortune in previews, including Wednesday early access screenings, making $72 million — the most of any movie in history — before the film’s official opening day, per Variety. The record was previously held by another Marvel blockbuster, 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, which made $60 million in Thursday preview.
It mushroomed exponentially by Saturday morning as VARIETY’s Jack Dunn gushed:
“Brand New Day” grossed an astounding $168 million from 4,487 North American theaters on Friday, securing the biggest opening day ever for a domestic release. The record previously belonged to 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame,” which earned $157 million on its first day in theaters. Sony has the film reaching $325 million by Sunday, but rival estimates have the film climbing as high as $358 million.
And as DEADLINE’s Anthony D’Alessandro paid it off early today, for a change the competitors’ buillishness actually proved to be more prescient:
It’s close, oh, so close, as Sony/Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: Brand New Day with $355M nearly ended Avengers: Endgame run for the best opening weekend ever in North America, that Marvel Studios Russo Brothers pic still holding the 3-day title with $357.1M. But for Sony, there’s no problem with being second, for they beat their own all-time studio record start previously owned by 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home ($260.1M).
D’Alessandro quickly followed that with even more inclusive and conclusive receipts that prove that this rising tide lifted all boars:
(T)he entire North American marketplace hit a record $428.99M weekend for all pics per Rentrak thanks to the $355M second best ever domestic opening of Sony/Marvel Studio’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day. We knew it was bound to be a record for the U.S./Canada B.O. and it could be higher by tomorrow morning if Brand New Day takes down Avengers: Endgame‘s all-time domestic opening record of $357.1M. That was the last time in the final weekend of 2019 that the domestic box office had a record overall weekend marketplace record with all titles totaling $402M.
It was a well-deserved victory lap–heck, for something like this, it shoulda been a victory 5k–for Sony’s seasoned movie honcho that D’Alessandro so enthusiastically framed:
(W)ho knew we’d see these numbers again in a post-Covid, streaming strong world. It’s a great feat for the Tom Rothman-run Motion Picture Division, the studio boss a long-time champion of theatrical and moviegoing, so much so that he had his parent company take hold of the Covid dormant L.A. historic Cinerama Dome Theater for a 2028 grand re-opening? Who knew a movie with a lot of heart and a complex villain could idea the pinnacle of No Way Home‘s three Spider-mans? How do you top that from both a story and commercial standpoint?
Says Sony Motion Pictures Chairman Rothman, “We all talked about it –Kevin Feige, Amy Pascal, and Tom Holland was very involved– it wasn’t possible to go bigger than the last movie, so we said let’s go deeper. Let’s do something different and make a character-driven story in the midst of spectacle.”
Judging by what Rothman’s talented crew of marketers and connectors were able to generate, I dare say at least he did. D’Alessandro was also on that case last week:
The Culver City lot’s latest promotional campaign for the Destin Daniel Cretton-directed sequel counts a worldwide media value of $309M, which is by and large an all-time record for any Hollywood film, outstripping Sony’s previous $288M promo partner campaign record set by 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home. Note that the media value here on Brand New Day doesn’t count any monies from licensing partners, which is often the case in other studios’ reported promotional partner campaigns.
(“I)n the case of Spider-Man, it’s “a true 8- to-80-years-old movie, it’s for everybody,” Sony EVP of Brand Strategy & Global Partnerships Jeffrey Godsick tells Deadline. As such, a studio casts a wide net to hit everyone: young, old and families. “When you have a collection of partners like this, you’re able to speak to different constituencies, instead of igniting one demographic” adds Godsick. “We try to speak to all in different ways.”
Social media analytics firm RelishMix reports that Spider-Man: Brand New Day already has a social media universe reach across TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, X and Instagram of 2.86 billion. That’s an all-time record figure recorded by the firm, ahead of Avengers: Endgame (2.4 billion) and Avengers: Infinity War (2 billion) and 3.2x above 26 different superhero genre norms across all social media platforms combined. The social media power of the cast here is akin to the batting power of the 1931 New York Yankees, with Zendaya at 216M fans, Tom Holland at 70M followers and Jon Bernthal at 5.3M fans(.)
I personally would have chosen at least the ’32 Yankees for my comparison, if not the ’27 version, because they were at least World Series champions. The ’31ers were a distant second in the American League behind the three-peating Philadelphia Athletics. On the other hand, they did set what still stands as the all-time record for total runs scored–a clip of nearly seven runs a game. So considering that at least at this writing Spidey trains the Avengers–albeit by what amounts to a rounding error–maybe D’Alessandro was more spot on that we first asserted?
Which brings us to the other burning question even in the wake of all of this. As Bugs Bunny asked Daffy Duck after he received a standing ovation by blowing himself up wearing a devil costime, whaddya gonna do for an encore?
Because even while D’Alessandro was spewing out positive datecdeote after datecdote for BRAND NEW DAY he was quick to remind that at least of this all-time record box office weekend’s record-setting status is due to the relative resilliency of the most recent best-ever release:
How is Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey doing in the shadow of a behemoth like Brand New Day? Very well, thank you, with a $51M third weekend, -43%, the best third frame the Oscar winning filmmaker has ever seen at the domestic box office. Running cume is $396.5M for the Universal theatrical release at 3,861 theaters. When does Odysseus wrap up his journey stateside? The outlook is a half billion for the latest Nolan, which if that happens would be his second highest grossing movie after Dark Knight ($534M domestic).
And THE ODYSSEY continues to sell out at all hours of the night at the country’s 30 IMAX theatres, with reports of people driving hundreds of miles and willing to spend playoff-level prices for showings that are booked solid through the middle of this month. BRAND NEW DAY did draw a healthy 24 per cent of its haul from so-called PLF(premium large format) screens–the majority (17%) coming from 3-D. But it’s not as if people make a pilgrimage and an event out of it.
Are we splitting hairs and being a tad petty by dredging this up? Sure. But it’s that kind of attention to detail that could keep the extremely effective Sony marketing machine on its game a little longer–especially since there’s scant little else of consequence heading to theatres for the rest of what’s left of this summer. It still remains to be seen if this spider has, well, legs. And whether it still can continue to reinvigorate the attitude toward theatrical releases that D’Alessandro also captured:
“This now sets up a tremendous month of August, and the likelihood of a $4 billion summer and a $10 billion year just went up exponentially with this milestone summer weekend,” says Rentrak Head of Marketplace Trends, Paul Dergarabedian. The U.S./Canada box office hasn’t seen double digits at the annual box office since pre-Covid 2019 when it ended with $11.4 billion. At this point in time in 2019, the annual box office stood at $7 billion. Summer for the first weekend of May through EOD today stands at $3.57 billion which -1% behind 2019’s heat wave at the same point in time which rang up $4.8B.
With attenuation beginning to set in on THE ODYSSEY, it most def puts SPIDER-MAN in the crosshairs to continue to do its part even after a record-breaking weekend to help the whole industry get to that finish line where–ironically–it will be ultimately be up to the next installment of THE AVENGERS franchise to make that eleven-figure year a reality. Go out a buy a BMW X3 if you can, or if that’s beyond your price range at least grab a bag of Takis or a swig of Liquid I.V. And yes, recommend a rewatch or a catch-up. You know what they say. With great power comes great responsibility.
Until next time…