Seven years ago, the Avengers defeated Thanos, saved half the universe, and turned Avengers: Endgame into a $858.3 million domestic blockbuster. Now a guy in red-and-blue spandex has come along to knock them down to a peg.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day has earned $3.4 million as of its fourth Monday, bringing its domestic total to $858.4 million and putting it just ahead of Endgame in the all-time domestic box office rankings.
The movie is now headed toward $900 million domestically, a milestone only Star Wars: The Force Awakens has previously approached. It is about $41.6 million away from reaching that mark and roughly $78 million behind The Force Awakens’s $936.7 million domestic record.
That would be an extraordinary run for any movie, but Brand New Day has been setting records since opening weekend. Its $360 million domestic debut surpassed Endgame’s record for the biggest opening weekend ever in North America. The movie also crossed $2 billion worldwide in fewer than three weeks, making it the second-fastest film to reach that mark behind — naturally — Endgame. It is only the eighth movie to join the $2 billion club.
As of its fourth weekend, Brand New Day had earned about $2.22 billion worldwide, making it the fifth highest-grossing film ever. It has passed Avengers: Infinity War and Star Wars: The Force Awakens on the global charts and is closing in on Titanic and Avatar: The Way of Water.
The long road to Doomsday
Everyone talks about Marvel fatigue, and the hype around the MCU may not be as deafening as it once was. But audiences are still showing up for Marvel stories.
The movie is doing more than carrying the box office, too. It introduces Sadie Sink’s Jean Grey as the first X-Man in the MCU’s primary timeline. Rather than presenting Jean as the compassionate hero audiences may recognize from previous adaptations, Brand New Day begins her story with the character as a dangerous, unstable antagonist — leaving room for the MCU to shape her into a hero later.
The next major test arrives Dec. 18, when Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters. Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, the film will bring together Avengers, Fantastic Four and X-Men characters to face a multiversal threat.
That makes Doomsday the clearest test yet of whether Marvel can turn its sprawling Multiverse Saga into another must-see event. In a recent analysis of the MCU’s current state, Polygon argued that the franchise no longer generates the all-consuming hype it did during the buildup to Infinity War and Endgame.
Until then, you have plenty of time to catch up. Disney+ has released a 15-film “Countdown to Doomsday” watch list, giving fans a much more manageable route through the MCU’s increasingly tangled multiverse. The list begins with X-Men from 2000, which introduces the Fox-era versions of Professor X, Magneto, Cyclops and Mystique. It ends with 2025’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which introduces Marvel’s newest version of the Fantastic Four and offers an early glimpse at Doctor Doom.