SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY swung past $2 billion at the worldwide box office, becoming just the eighth movie in history to cross that threshold and the second-fastest one ever to get there, Variety reported.
“This debut reflects the enduring power of Marvel’s characters, and the connection they continue to have with fans around the world,” Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige said, reacting last month to the movie’s record-breaking opening.
Sony and Marvel Studios’ fourth Tom Holland-led SPIDER-MAN sequel earned $785 million domestically and another $1.23 billion overseas for a worldwide total of $2.022 billion, according to Variety. Only AVENGERS: ENDGAME got there faster, hitting $2 billion in 11 days back in 2019. BRAND NEW DAY needed just 17.
That’s a sharp turnaround from SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME, which pulled in $1.9 billion in 2021 but never opened in China and missed the $2 billion mark entirely. BRAND NEW DAY didn’t have that problem this time around — it opened in China to $121 million and became the country’s highest-grossing comic-book movie since before the pandemic.
Director Destin Daniel Cretton’s movie, starring Holland alongside Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon and Jon Bernthal, opened July 31 with a domestic weekend that smashed AVENGERS: ENDGAME’s all-time opening-weekend record and a $932 million global debut. It then crossed $1 billion worldwide in just six days, the second-fastest climb to that mark on record, behind only ENDGAME.
Related: SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY Smashes Box Office Records
The audience turnout wasn’t just curiosity about a franchise cash-in. Critics and fans both responded warmly, with the movie holding a 90% critics’ score and a 98% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, according to Movieguide®’s earlier coverage of its record-setting run. BRAND NEW DAY now joins a short list that includes AVATAR, TITANIC and STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS as one of the only movies ever to reach $2 billion worldwide, per Euronews.
Movieguide® has tracked nearly every record BRAND NEW DAY has broken this summer, from its historic opening weekend to its climb into the all-time top 10 highest-grossing movies ever made.
Movieguide®’s review of the movie gave it four out of four stars for entertainment value but issued an Extreme Caution rating for family content, citing nearly 40 instances of coarse language, including one use of Jesus’s name as a curse and six uses of “GD.”
“A movie that works this hard to make its hero a picture of Christ should not spend His name as a curse,” the review noted, pointing to Peter Parker’s willingness to risk his life to save a stranger as a clear echo of sacrificial love and to his refusal to let a villain be consumed by vengeance.
That tension sums up a lot of what Hollywood does with faith these days: reach for something true and good, then trip over the details on the way there. Families weighing a trip to see BRAND NEW DAY, or a rewatch now that it’s a certified phenomenon, would do well to read Movieguide®’s full content breakdown before buying tickets for the kids.
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