Superhero fatigue? Not when it comes to Spider-Man.
Indeed, after big-budget films like Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, Masters of the Universe and Supergirl failed to live up to box-office expectations, The Wall-Crawler’s Brand New Day came out swinging this weekend to earn the biggest U.S. opening weekend of all time with a $360 million total, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. This passes the $355 million opening weekend of 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, though its $932 million worldwide opening still slightly trails Endgame’s $1.2 billion global debut.
Following the incredible success of smaller films like Obsession and Backrooms this summer, and given the relatively disappointing performance of effects-heavy spectacles recently – even dating back to last year’s Thunderbolts* and The Fantastic Four: First Steps – one might assume that people were sick of superheroes and that it’s time for the genre to take a break and reset. In reality, it seems, people just want their superheroes. And it’s hard not to relate to the downtrodden-but-determined Peter Parker no matter how many times we see him on screen (for those counting, this is the ninth live-action Spider-Man film and Tom Holland’s seventh appearance as the character). This might mean that we see more of heavy hitters like Spidey and the X-Men moving forward and less of the more niche characters populating Marvel Cinematic Universe films and streaming shows since Endgame.
It also helps that Brand New Day is really good. Director Destin Daniel Cretton has brought us the best interpretation of Spider-Man – and perhaps, even Marvel’s New York – that we’ve ever seen in the MCU. Word-of-mouth for the movie was strong all weekend, theaters were packed, and social media buzzed in ways it hasn’t since, well, the last time a Spider-Man graced our screens in 2023’s Across the Spider-Verse.
I hope this all amounts to Cretton and Holland teaming up for more Spider-Man movies sooner rather than later – or, at the very least, that Marvel gives us more films as authentic as Brand New Day. Read my full review here.
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