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Spider-Man: Brand New Day Sets Box Office Record With $72 Million in Previews, Beating Avengers: Endgame

Tom Holland's latest Spider-Man film shattered the preview record once held by Avengers: Endgame and is now tracking toward potentially the biggest opening weekend in box office history.

By Jeanpierre Florent · FirstDrop News TeamJul 31, 20263 min read

Spider-Man: Brand New Day made box office history on Thursday with a record breaking $72 million in preview screenings across North America. The Tom Holland and Zendaya starring sequel demolished the previous preview record of $60 million set by Avengers: Endgame in April 2019, putting the MCU adventure firmly within striking distance of the biggest opening weekend of all time.

The $72 million total includes $3.75 million from Wednesday early access showings, which were added to the Thursday numbers as usual. Even adjusting Endgame's preview total for inflation brings it to $78 million, which still falls short of what Brand New Day accomplished.

All signs point to either the second biggest or possibly the very biggest opening weekend ever. The Destin Daniel Cretton directed film is tracking between Spider-Man: No Way Home's $260 million domestic debut and Avengers: Endgame's $357 million record setting launch.

Stellar Reviews and Audience Scores Point to Long Term Success

Brand New Day earned an A from CinemaScore and boasts a 91% critics score with a 7.7 out of 10 average on Rotten Tomatoes, paired with a 98% audience score. Those numbers suggest the film has legs for a sustained theatrical run beyond opening weekend.

Great reviews, solid buzz, and the obvious variable of families waiting to take kids over the actual weekend mean there's little reason to expect excessive frontloading after Thursday. Even conservative multipliers from comparable blockbusters would deliver astronomical totals.

If Brand New Day pulls a preview to weekend multiplier comparable to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II, which opened with $169 million from a $90 million Friday and $43.5 million in midnight and Thursday shows in July 2011, that would give the Sony and Marvel Studios collaboration a $283 million domestic debut weekend. Using The Force Awakens as a comparison, which opened with $248 million in December 2015 including a $120 million Friday and $57 million Thursday, would push Brand New Day to $318 million for the weekend.

Global Records Could Fall This Weekend

The domestic record is only part of the story. Brand New Day is also set for a five day opening record overseas of at least $850 million, which would position the film to potentially break Avengers: Endgame's global opening weekend record of $1.2 billion worldwide.

Many believed Endgame's records would never fall again. That film capitalized on 11 years of Marvel Cinematic Universe storytelling to achieve a launch that seemed untouchable just seven years ago. Brand New Day is proving that the right movie at the right time can still shatter expectations.

With rave audience reception and a lack of major box office competition in August, Brand New Day has everything it needs for a global theatrical run exceeding $2 billion.

Industry Wide Impact

Combined with the third weekend of Universal's The Odyssey, Brand New Day should also set a new record for the highest overall domestic weekend in box office history. That record currently stands at $402 million, set on the launch weekend of Avengers: Endgame.

A result like that would push domestic box office grosses for the year to date past the $6 billion mark, making it all but certain that the industry will reach $10 billion by year's end for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unlike December 2021, movie theaters don't currently need a hero to save them. But Spider-Man is showing up anyway, delivering the kind of box office performance that reminds everyone why theatrical releases still matter. The records being broken this weekend aren't just numbers. They represent audiences showing up in massive numbers for a character and franchise they love, proving that when the movie delivers, people will pack theaters no matter what streaming options exist at home.

Written by Jeanpierre Florent, part of the FirstDrop News Team

Jeanpierre is the Southern California based creator behind JPLAND21, a theme park community of more than one million subscribers across YouTube and Instagram. Our reporting is grounded in regular firsthand park visits. More about us

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