Columbia Pictures' Spider-Man: Brand New Day is on pace to notch the second-biggest opening weekend in domestic box office history, with the potential to overpower the top movie after final ticket sales are tallied Sunday night.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day surpassed already lofty projections and is projected to rake in $355 million from 4,487 locations in the U.S. and Canada, an average of $79,117 a location, becoming only the second film in domestic box office history to open above $300 million.
It easily leapt over Spider-Man: No Way Home, which opened with $260.1 million at the domestic box office in December 2021, and could overpower the all-time highest domestic opening, which was April 2019's Walt Disney's Avengers: Endgame, selling $357.1 million over its first three days.
"It's difficult to properly quantify the enormity of the significance of this, the biggest ever weekend for movie theaters," driven by Spider-Man and The Odyssey," Rentrak's head of marketplace trends Paul Dergarabedian said. Spider-Man and this weekend's other top films generated more than $429 million in domestic ticket sales, up 246% over the same weekend last year.
He said this weekend's top two movies alone generated $406 million of the weekend's $429 million, up 246% over the same weekend last year and enough to surpass the previous biggest weekend of all time.
The weekend's top two films alone generated enough box office heat to surpass the previous record holding biggest weekend of all time, Dergarabedian said. "This now sets up a tremendous month of August, and the likelihood of a $4 billion summer and a $10 billion year just went up exponentially with this milestone summer weekend," he added.
Brand New Day sold an estimated $169.3 million in tickets on Friday and $101.5 million on Saturday, and could sell another $84.2 million on Sunday, according to Sony Pictures, which distributes the film.
International audiences in 66 markets bought another $573 million of tickets, bringing its estimated global debut to $927 million. That includes $121 million from China, $49 million from the United Kingdom, $38.3 million from Mexico, and $31.8 million from India, according to BoxOfficeMojo. That international total is second only to Avengers: Endgame, which hauled in $1.2 billion its first weekend.
Actors Tom Holland and Zendaya star as Spider Man/Peter Parker and MJ in their fourth outing as Spider Man/Peter Parker and MJ. Based on the Marvel comic book by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, the movie was directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, who directed Disney's 2021 movie, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
Sony Pictures said Brand New Day is "resonating with audiences in a major way," noting its Certified Fresh 90% critics score and 98% Popcornmeter audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, its "A" CinemaScore, its five-star PostTrak ratings from general audiences, parents, and children, and 4.2 stars on Letterboxd, making it one of the highest-rated live-action superhero entries on the platform.
"Spider-Man: Brand New Day is fundamentally a movie about friendship, about the balm of connection in all our lives," that is resonating with audiences of all ages all around the world, said Tom Rothman, Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group chairman and CEO.
Producer Amy Pascal said: "It's exciting to see such a powerful response to a story that never lost sight of what makes Peter Parker so enduring -- his humanity. 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."
As expected, Universal's The Odyssey took second place at the North American box office, selling an estimated $51 million in its third weekend and bringing its estimated domestic total to $395.5 million and its global total to $911.4 million, according to Rentrak.
About $221 million of that came from IMAX screens, making The Odyssey the third-highest grossing IMAX movie of all time. The film will play on IMAX 70mm screens through September.
In third place, Disney Pixar's Toy Story five sold an estimated $6.3 million in its seventh weekend, for a domestic total of $461.7 million and worldwide total of $1.07 billion. Toy Story five recently became the year's third film, after Universal Pictures and Nintendo's Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Lionsgate's musical biopic Michael , to sell more than $1 billion in global box office.
Universal's Minions & Monsters sold another $5.8 million at the domestic box office this weekend, bringing its year to date worldwide total to $449.6 million. And Disney's live-action Moana sold another $5.3 million, bringing its global total to $261.1 million.
If Spider-Man: Brand New Day ends up beating Avengers: Endgame this weekend, Disney will have a chance to retake the throne when Avengers: Doomsday opens on Dec. 18.
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