Spider-Man: Brand New Day vaulted to another monster weekend at the global cinema, and is expected to push Hollywood's domestic summer box office sales to $4 billion by Monday.
Domestic summer movie ticket revenue is projected to reach $3.985 billion by Sunday night, and cross the $4 billion threshold on Monday, Rentrak's head of marketplace trends Paul Dergarabedian told Barron's. That's 22% above last year's summer box office and 4.4% better than the summer of 2019.
The current record for summer box office, as calculated from the first Friday in May through Labor Day, is $4.755 billion, set in 2013, he said. That means summer 2026 is "roughly $770 million away, depending on where this weekend ultimately lands."
Marvel Studios' Spider-Man: Brand New Day, distributed by Sony Pictures, sold another $145 million in domestic box office tickets in its second weekend, on top of its first weekend's record $360 billion, bringing its domestic ticket sales total through Sunday to an estimated $655.1 million, according to Rentrak.
Brand New Day contributed 71.4% of this weekend's estimated domestic box office of $203 million, and is now the highest-grossing movie this year, according to Rentrak. This weekend's $203 million is 51% higher than the same weekend last summer, and 51.9% higher than the same weekend in 2019.
Hollywood's year to date box office domestic box office sales are an estimated $6.61 billion, or 18.5% higher than at this point in 2025. This summer's box office also has an extra week, which will make it a 130-day season compared with the typical 123 days, Dergarabedian notes.
"I don't think any box office record is out of reach for Spider-Man: Brand New Day," said Dergarabedian, who saw the movie in a packed theater the Thursday before it opened July 31. "The hit film keeps swinging from record to record with remarkable momentum and could very well wind up being the first film ever to cross the $1 billion mark at the domestic box office."
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is benefiting not only from premium-format screenings, but from audiences' FOMO (fear of missing out), and its prerelease buzz, amplified from social media to in-vehicle advertisements in BMW luxury autos.
It grossed more than $1 billion in international box office sales in only 12 days, and has now sold more than $1.67 billion worldwide, making it the 12th highest-grossing film of all time, Rentrak says.
Although the current domestic record-holder, Walt Disney's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, finished with $936.7 million in sales, "the speed with which Spidey has hit the $1 billion-dollar mark worldwide, and now potentially domestically, speaks to a relentless level of audience enthusiasm from moviegoers who seemingly cannot get enough of the film," Dergarabedian said.
Also contributing to Hollywood's box office summer haul is Universal's The Odyssey , which opened with $123.5 million on July 17, and grossed another $31.5 million this weekend. That brings its domestic box office sales to an estimated $461.2 million, and its worldwide box office to $1.1 billion, including $289.3 million on global IMAX screens.
Christopher Nolan's three-hour depiction of Homer's epic is now his highest grossing movie, outselling The Dark Knight Rises' $1.09 billion in 2012, and IMAX's best-selling release of all time, with showtimes in some 70mm theaters sold out through September.
The two movies are powering a surge in movie ticket sales worldwide, along with sales of concessions, popcorn buckets, and other merch. The films also happen to star three of the same actors (Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Jon Bernthal). "There really is no comparable event in box office history," Dergarabedian said. In 34 years of covering the movie business, "this may be the most unique four-week stretch I have ever tracked in my box office career."
The previous domestic opening record was held by Marvel Studios' Avengers: Endgame, distributed by Walt Disney, which grossed $357.1 million domestically and $1.2 billion worldwide, not adjusted for inflation, when it debuted in April 2019.
Spider-Man audiences have been seeing previews for Avengers: Doomsday, which opens in theaters on Dec. 18.
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