Spider-Man: Brand New Day opens with massive weekend box office, highest of post-COVID era

Some of its superhero compatriots may have fallen at the box office this year, but not Spider-Man.

The web slinger had a gargantuan opening weekend, taking almost a billion US dollars worldwide in those first few days, putting it within a hair’s breadth of the 2026 overall chart topper after only four days in cinemas.

The Tom Holland-led Spider-Man movie clocked in at $US927 million ($AU1.3 billion) globally, already the fourth highest grossing movie of the year behind Toy Story 5 ($US1.06 billion), Michael and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. It is likely to claim first position by the end of the week.

In Australia, Spider-Man: Brand New Day opened to $30.4 million, which is the second highest opening weekend, not adjusted for inflation, behind Avengers: Endgame ($44.34 million, but this was over five days instead of four) and ahead of Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($27.2 million).

It is the biggest Australian weekend of the post-COVID era.

Its predecessor, Spider-Man: No Way Home, which was released in December 2021 only two months after cinemas reopened after a second COVID lockdown, had a $26.12 million local first weekend before ending its run on $81.78 million.

In one swoop, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is already ahead of The Odyssey after the Christopher Nolan epic dominated cinemas in its first two weeks.

The Odyssey is sitting on $US911 million worldwide after three weekends, and the combo of these two near-billion dollar films have buoyed the cinema distribution business after years of post-Covid challenges due in part to the pandemic-accelerated embrace of streaming and home entertainment.

In 2019, the last full box office year before COVID, worldwide grosses had hit a record $US42.5 billion. But it never recovered after that with 2022 (the first year in which cinemas were not sporadically closed) at $US26 billion, followed by $US33.9 billion in 2023 (the year of Barbenheimer), $US30 billion in 2024 and an estimated $US33.5 billion in 2025.

But the success of these two blockbuster films, one a franchise entry, the other a drama from a well-known director, shows that there is still audience appetite for theatrical event experiences that cannot be replicated at home.

The Odyssey, in particular, has done very well on IMAX screens and on what the industry calls premium large format screens.

In the US and Canada, this past weekend ($US430 million) is the highest in history thanks to the two films as well as a raft of smaller and hangover titles such as Toy Story 5 and Minions and Monsters.

Around the world, some of Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s strongest markets were North America ($US355 million), China ($US121 million), the UK, Mexico, India, France, South Korea and Brazil.

While the previous Spider-Man films, especially in the Holland era, have been enormously popular, there was still a hesitancy in declaring it a sure thing prior to release.

In recent years, there have been more box office misses than hits in the comic book adaptation genre, which has led to concerns that there is a “superhero fatigue” from audiences who have been inundated with movie and TV releases in the past 15 years.

Only a month ago, DC’s Supergirl was released to underwhelming reception, collecting $US62.6 million worldwide on its opening weekend, before limping to $125 million after five weeks.

Since COVID, there have been few superhero films that have fired, with only Spider-Man: No Way Home and Deadpool and Wolverine crossing the billion-dollar mark while the likes of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, The Batman, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Thor: Love and Thunder, Doctor Strange and the Universe of Madness and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse have been in the midrange.

Among the box office misfires were Thunderbolts, Captain America: Brave New World, The Flash, Blue Beetle, The Fantastic Four, Shazam Fury of the Gods, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Black Adam, The Marvels, Morbius, Kraven the Hunter, Madame Web and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

So, Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s success had been far from assured.

However, there is something about the Spider-Man character that has endured since he first appeared in comic book pages in 1962, thanks to the combination of the earnest pluck of his human alter-ego, Peter Parker, and the visually impressive superpowers of Spider-Man.

There were three TV films starting in 1977 starring The Sound of Music actor (and adopted Australian) Nicholas Hammond, but it was Sam Raimi’s trilogy, starting in 2002, which really kicked off this era of big screen Spideys. Those movies featured Tobey Maguire who played the lead until 2007.

It was rebooted in 2012 with Andrew Garfield under the aegis of director Marc Webb but that series only eventuated in two films before an agreement was struck between Sony, which has the screen rights to the character, and Marvel Studios, to bring the character into the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe alongside the likes of Iron Man and Captain America.

Holland, then best known for his West End performance as Billy Elliot, was cast in the role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man, alongside Jacob Batalon as friend Ned and Zendaya as eventual love interested MJ.

Holland has now starred in four Spider-Man movies and appeared in two Avengers films and a Captain America instalment.

Sony also produces the animated Spider-Verse feature films, which is centred on a different version of Spider-Man, Miles Morales.

The end card of Spider-Man: Brand New Day has promised the character will return for another screen adventure.