“To be truly honest, it feels fantastic,” Sony Pictures chief Tom Rothman tells The Hollywood Reporter. As for what worked, he says, “You’ve just got to make a really, really great film. Now, there are other more mechanical factors. There hasn’t been one in five years, so scarcity has value. The audience is very, very connected with this character. It’s a very relatable story. No matter how old or young you are, everybody wants connection in the world. Everybody needs friends \u2014 and that’s what the movie is about.”<\/p>\n
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Tom Holland in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.<\/p>\n
Indeed, the last time Holland led a feature as the web-slinger was Spider-Man: No Way Home, which opened to $260.1 million domestically and $587.2 million worldwide in December 2021. That film slips from its standing as the No. 2 highest-grossing domestic opening weekend ever as Brand New Day leaps past it. No Way Home’s staggering success \u2014 culminating with its $1.9 billion global total for No. 8 all-time \u2014 was seen as a tough bar to reach, given the buzzy appearances of past Peter Parkers in Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, along with the lack of major theatrical competition coming out of COVID.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0studio had initially been projecting<\/a> a start of $195 million domestic and $465 million global for Spider-Man: Brand New Day that, while less amazing, would have still put the film among the top 10 all-time debuts. Hailing from producers Marvel Studios and Amy Pascal, it carries a $225 million production budget.<\/p>\n This breathtaking start follows recent debate over potential fatigue for franchise films, including those of the superhero variety, given that DC Studios’ <\/a>Supergirl<\/a> underperformed<\/a> earlier this summer. After certain Marvel titles in recent years have come up a bit short of sky-high box office expectations, including 2025’s Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts*, Brand New Day is a much-celebrated jolt and means that Marvel Studios is behind the top four domestic openings ever (with 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War at No. 4). It also provides momentum ahead of Disney’s star-packed Avengers: Doomsday hitting theaters this December.<\/p>\n “This remarkable opening reinforces that moviegoers are hungry for stories that are both spectacular and deeply human, and we’re thrilled to see that resonate on such a global scale,” Pascal said in a statement to THR. And in his own statement, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige heralded the “phenomenal opening” for the film that “sets up exciting things to come.”<\/p>\n Sadie Sink,\u00a0Jacob Batalon,\u00a0Jon Bernthal\u00a0and\u00a0Mark Ruffalo\u00a0also star in\u00a0the new movie from\u00a0Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings\u00a0filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton. It centers on Marvel Comics’ signature hero as he endures a lonely life without his loved ones before an invisible enemy tracks him down.<\/p>\n Tom Holland (left) and director Destin Daniel Cretton on the set of Spider-Man: Brand New Day. <\/p>\n Moviegoers have been impressed, as\u00a0Brand New Day\u00a0delivers a 90 percent approval rating from reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes, along with a 98 percent audience score. It earned an A CinemaScore from audiences. In his\u00a0review for\u00a0<\/a>The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>, chief film critic David Rooney praised “a never-better Tom Holland.”<\/p>\n Also opening in wide release over the weekend was filmmaker\u00a0Gregg Araki’s\u00a0I Want Your Sex<\/a>, starring Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman. Magnolia Pictures released the comedic thriller in 700 North American theaters after acquiring the movie in a reported seven-figure deal\u00a0following its Sundance premiere<\/a>.\u00a0I Want Your Sex\u00a0debuted with $600,000 for eighth place.<\/p>\n After leading the box office for the previous two weekends, Universal’s\u00a0The Odyssey<\/a>\u00a0travels to second place<\/a>\u00a0with $51 million and a domestic total of $395.5 million. In what was likely a wise move, studios avoided releasing any titles last weekend to not risk falling between the imposing openings for Christopher Nolan’s mythological epic\u00a0and\u00a0Brand New Day. On Sunday, Universal crossed the $4 billion mark for the 2026 box office, becoming the first studio this year to achieve the feat after Disney was the first to reach $3 billion.<\/p>\n Landing in third place is Pixar’s\u00a0Toy Story 5<\/a>, earning around $6.2 million to bring its domestic haul to $461 million. Fellow animated title\u00a0Minions & Monsters<\/a>\u00a0collected $5.8 million to bring the Illumination movie’s domestic sum to $168.4 million.<\/p>\n Closing out the top five is\u00a0Disney’s live-action\u00a0<\/a>Moana<\/a>. The Dwayne Johnson-led remake scooped up $5.3 million for a domestic total of $114.8 million.<\/p>\n More to come.<\/p>\n Best of The Hollywood Reporter<\/p>\n Sign up for THR’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spider-Man: Brand New Day received quite the friendly welcome in its opening weekend, as Sony Pictures’ superhero feature…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":724718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[40242,96,5228,2839,152729,33459,10058,5454,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-724717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-brand-new-day","tag-entertainment","tag-marvel-studios","tag-movies","tag-opening-weekend","tag-sony-pictures","tag-the-hollywood-reporter","tag-tom-holland","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"<span](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/the_hollywood_reporter_217\/6e5a2f6e02486db0d7aab69f7ad73b04.jpeg\"\/)
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