‘Spider-Man’ movie opens to $927 million worldwide, defying superhero slump

LOS ANGELES — Hollywood’s superhero boom ended years ago. Spidey apparently didn’t get the memo.

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“Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” the 11th big-budget Spider-Man movie from Sony Pictures since 2002, will sell roughly $355 million in tickets at the North American box office from Thursday through Sunday, according to Rentrak, a film data service. That would rank as one of the biggest domestic openings ever, behind only “Avengers: Endgame” (Disney-Marvel), which generated $357 million in 2019, or about $467 million after adjusting for inflation.

Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton from a screenplay by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, “Brand New Day” was expected to take in about $572 million overseas from 73,500 locations, for a global opening total of roughly $927 million. (Ticket sales are split roughly 50-50 between studios and theaters.) Sony spent an estimated $225 million to make the PG-13 movie, not including marketing costs.

To meet demand, some multiplexes in the United States devoted nearly half their weekend showtimes to “Brand New Day,” double what is typical, even for an event film. At some locations, screenings began as often as every 15 minutes. EntTelligence, a film research firm, estimated that 24.1 million people in North America would attend the movie from Thursday through Sunday.

“It’s a runaway train,” Tom Rothman, chair of Sony’s Motion Picture Group, said in a phone interview, sounding a bit shellshocked.

Before “Brand New Day” arrived last week, National Research Group, a film industry consultant, had predicted that it would collect about $195 million in North America. On Saturday, Sony drew gasps in Hollywood after saying that domestic ticket sales could reach as high as $325 million for the weekend. Stronger-than-anticipated walk-up ticket sales pushed the estimate higher by Sunday morning.

“Brand New Day” drew especially strong turnout from Generation Z, defined as people born from 1997 to 2012, making them about 14 to 29 today. The reasons included casting — the movie features young stars like Tom Holland, Zendaya and Sadie Sink — and specific storytelling choices, according to Greg Durkin, the founder of Enact Insight, an entertainment research firm.

“Some of the themes in ‘Brand New Day’ that stoke Gen Z include mental health challenges, loneliness and being unseen by the ones you love,” Durkin said in an email. In “Brand New Day,” Peter Parker (played for a fourth time by Holland) struggles to rebuild his life after losing the personal connections that once defined him, leaving him isolated as he confronts a new threat.

That emphasis was intentional. Producers included Amy Pascal, who has been involved with the “Spider-Man” franchise since Sony first licensed the character from Marvel in 1999. She has long insisted that Parker’s emotional life and personal relationships remain at the center of the movies. Analysts say that creative approach has helped keep Spider-Man feeling distinctive even as enthusiasm for superheroes has cooled. (Kevin Feige, Avi Arad and Rachel O’Connor rounded out the core producing team.)

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“Audiences care when movies make them feel something,” Rothman said. “In this movie, Peter Parker is struggling with the kind of problems that all of us have struggled with at some point in our lives. And, ultimately, the movie is about hope.

“What enduring movies really do, from ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ on down,” he continued, “is give the audience spectacle and fun and razzmatazz, but through a very personal story, and that’s what this is.”

“Brand New Day” arrived to widespread acclaim, something that has become rare for superhero sequels. Critics lavished praise on the film, so much so that chatter about potential Oscar attention started in Hollywood. The Rotten Tomatoes audience score stood at 98% positive Sunday.

There was also pent-up demand at the box office for an iconic superhero, according to David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office numbers. Audience interest in superhero movies has waned in recent years, prompting studios to sharply reduce output. The last top-tier superhero to arrive in cinemas was Superman last summer.

“The market is ripe-ripe-ripe,” Gross said.

Sony marketed “Brand New Day” as less of a sequel and more of a new start (even the title telegraphed a reset), something analysts said made the film feel special: This is an event, not just another installment in an ever-expanding saga. Rather than mapping out the plot, the trailers withheld major story details, allowing fans to spend months debating what they weren’t seeing.

Since the 1970s, Hollywood has experienced distinct superhero eras, each resetting audience expectations and revealing a new industry strategy. Superman, who reigned from 1978 to roughly the mid 1980s, proved that the characters would resonate beyond children. In the Batman era, which began in 1989, superhero movies became megawatt franchises, replete with a dizzying number of marketing tie-ins and consumer products.

In 2008, when Iron Man ushered in the Marvel Studios era, superheroes become an industrial production, with studios like Marvel and Warner Bros. releasing interconnected films on an assembly-line schedule. It led to a glut. In 2023, one superhero movie after another disappointed at the box office, including “The Marvels,” “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” “The Flash,” “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” “Blue Beetle” and “Shazam! Fury of the Gods.”

Spider-Man has shown that the problem may not be superheroes so much as sameness. Sony has repeatedly found ways to make each new installment feel distinct. Two of the studio’s 11 entries have been animated, embracing a comic-book visual style unlike anything else in Hollywood blockbusters. It has recast the title role three times. And now, with “Brand New Day,” it found a way to make a 24-year-old movie franchise come across as fresh — a place for audiences to jump in without feeling as if they had missed years of homework.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.