Hollywood’s Most Indestructible Superhero

This has been a terrific year for movie theaters.

Cinemas are on course for their best financial year since before the coronavirus pandemic, powered by large-scale hits such as The Odyssey and surprise small-budget smashes, particularly Obsession and Backrooms .

Fears about the decline of the big-screen experience amid the rise of at-home streaming seem to have begun dissipating.

But one theatrical stalwart is showing serious signs of weakness: the superhero movie, which helped keep blockbusters afloat for most of the 2010s.

Marvel’s most anticipated title last year, The Fantastic Four: First Steps —which reintroduced the fan-favorite comic-book team—failed to meet the studio’s lofty expectations; this June’s DC Comics adaptation of Supergirl was an out-and-out bomb.

By those metrics, one might have predicted a similar slump for this summer’s new Spider-Man sequel, subtitled Brand New Day .

Instead, it has broken nearly every box-office record imaginable.

That the film has been able to defy mounting superhero fatigue may seem unexpected.

After all, Brand New Day is the fourth Spider-Man entry set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which owns the rights to the character; it’s Tom Holland’s seventh time playing the character.

Whereas its predecessor, 2021’s No Way Home , sold itself on bringing back heroes and villains from prior Spider-Man entries, Brand New Day promised a general reset.

Its story also feels smaller, the action confined to the hero’s hometown of New York City, where he faces off with more street-level villains.

Given the public’s declining appetite for the MCU—long gone are the days when an installment starring a relatively unknown character could make more than $1 billion worldwide— Brand New Day ’s streamlined focus seemed like an audience gamble. [ Read: The Dark Knight changed Hollywood movies forever ] Not so: The movie earned $360 million domestically during its opening weekend, shattering a record set by Avengers: Endgame in 2019.

Endgame was the grand conclusion of Marvel’s initial saga, featuring Spider-Man alongside every other popular character in the company’s wheelhouse.

Yet Brand New Day , with its far less cataclysmic stakes, could be the first-ever film to make $1 billion in the United States and Canada alone; if it doesn’t break the all-time worldwide box-office record held by Avatar ($2.9 billion), it will at least come close.