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Spider-Man: Brand New Day has overtaken Star Wars: The Force Awakens to become the highest-grossing movie of all time in North America.
Domestic box office for the Tom Holland sequel is now up to $936.773 million, according to Variety. That puts it just ahead of 2015’s The Force Awakens, which is sitting on $936 million at the North American box office.
Of course, The Force Awakens came out 11 years ago, so there’s inflation to consider here. But Sony and Marvel owner Disney won’t care; Spider-Man: Brand New Day has been an astonishing success, so much so that even movie executives were taken by surprise.
Earlier this month, Sony Pictures chief Tom Rothman said that Brand New Day’s popularity was down to the fact that it is, essentially, a movie about “a lonely guy.”
If you’re one of the few who hasn’t seen Brand New Day yet, it picks up years after the events of 2021’s No Way Home, and shows Peter Parker struggling to cope with the absence of his friends and loved ones following Doctor Strange’s memory wipe spell. A decent chunk of the first act of the movie is spent showing Parker’s inner turmoil and, yes, his extreme loneliness, which is fueled by the end of his relationship with Zendaya’s MJ.
This, Rothman insisted, is the key to Brand New Day’s appeal. Brand New Day is “not so much a superhero film, but a super-person film,” he said. “The reason that movie has resonated all around the world is because it’s about a lonely guy… It’s like yeah, it’s about friendship. It’s very human. It’s very emotional. It’s got plenty of whiz-bang, but that’s not what the secret is. The secret is it’s a relatable story that almost everybody has related to.”
The big box office question now is will Brand New Day go on to hit the billion dollar mark at the domestic box office? As Variety notes, after 47 days in theaters, perhaps it will need a re-release or two to get there.
Brand New Day’s global total is now $2.4 billion, which makes it the third-highest grossing movie of all time behind only Avatar and Avengers: Endgame. Neither movie is in trouble of being overtaken by Brand New Day (Endgame is on $2.7 billion, Avatar, which came out in 2009, is on $2.9 billion).
Last week, it was reported that the inevitable Spider-Man sequel already has its director, with Deadline saying Destin Daniel Cretton will return for Marvel and Sony’s fifth Tom Holland-starring Spider-Man movie. Given how well Cretton’s Brand New Day has done, that’s not a huge surprise.
Will this December’s Avengers: Doomsday, which has yet to confirm the appearance of a Spider-Man from this or any other universe, outperform Brand New Day?
Wesley Yin-Poole
Director, News
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
