Spider-Man: Brand New Day Breaks Another Avengers: Endgame Record, But Can Doomsday Top It?
Over the past handful of years, much has been made about the concept of superhero fatigue. As films like Deadpool & Wolverine and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 can attest, comic book adaptations can still be massive draws, but the genre is certainly more susceptible to the occasional box office disappointment than it was a decade ago. It was only last year when we made the case that the superhero movie bubble had burst, though there are certain A-list characters who are immune to any changing box office trends. Leading that group is Spider-Man, whose new film Spider-Man: Brand New Day has already broken one major box office record. Now, it’s broken another.
According to Deadline, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is on track to gross somewhere between $167-173 million domestically in its opening day. That figure includes the $72 million it earned from Thursday preview screenings. Even the low end of that estimate would be more than enough to top Avengers: Endgame‘s previous all-time opening day record of $157.4 million.
To put Brand New Day‘s box office dominance in another perspective, it is already the 10th highest-grossing film domestically of 2026. $167 million is just enough to surpass the lifetime gross of Pixar’s Hoppers ($166 million), which ended its run on June 4th.
Will Spider-Man: Brand New Day Be the Highest-Grossing Movie of 2026?
With a record-breaking first day under its belt, Spider-Man: Brand New Day now stands to gross $330+ million domestically in its opening weekend. Heading into the film’s debut, the rosiest box office tracking suggested a start of $300 million domestically and $800 million worldwide, but it was difficult to tell how attainable those numbers actually were. Box office predictions are not an exact science, and the significant volume of Brand New Day ticket pre-sales seemingly threw some box office prognosticators for a loop. At one point, the domestic estimate was between $180-190 million. Brand New Day almost made that in a single day.
It looks like Brand New Day is going to score the second-biggest opening weekend of all time at the very least. With more concrete figures starting to roll in, we can now have an honest conversation about whether or not Brand New Day is going to be the No. 1 film of the year at the box office. If it really does gross $330+ million this weekend, it’ll only be a matter of time before it passes Toy Story 5 to become 2026’s top movie so far. As of July 29th, Toy Story 5 stands at $454.1 million (after 41 days in theaters). Brand New Day is going to blow past that, and there’s no telling how high it will go. August has some notable releases (The End of Oak Street, The Dog Stars), but nothing on the level of a new Spider-Man movie. Brand New Day will be taking full advantage of a relatively weak marketplace over the next month, substantially padding its total. Spider-Man: No Way Home finished with $804.7 million domestically, which could be in range for Brand New Day.
There’s only one movie this year that has a realistic chance to rival Brand New Day, and that’s Avengers: Doomsday. Marvel’s latest crossover event is set to be a massive draw this holiday season, already making more than $16.5 million domestically from advanced ticket sales. Doomsday accomplished that despite not having access to IMAX screens and tickets for only 1,000 locations being made available, so it could conceivably top Brand New Day as more showtimes are added when it gets closer to release. Of course, there’s one thing standing in Doomsday‘s way. It shares its release date with Denis Villeneuve’s hotly anticipated Dune: Part Three.
The odds of Dune topping Doomsday at the box office are low, but it will likely eat into Doomsday‘s business a bit. That’s because Dune 3 secured a multi-week exclusive IMAX run (leading Disney to create Infinity Vision for Doomsday). IMAX has become an increasingly large part of the theatergoing experience, as audiences seek out the premium format to get the most bang for their buck. Missing out on that revenue could hurt Doomsday. It’s true that Brand New Day is set to make $330+ million with no IMAX screenings of its own, but this isn’t an exact apples to apples comparison. The Odyssey had a two-week head start on Spider-Man. Demand for Christopher Nolan’s fantasy epic is still high, but there was a buffer between it and Spider-Man. Dune and Doomsday are opening on the same day and have an overlap in target demographics, so Doomsday may not cruise to $300 million. There’s also word of mouth to consider. Brand New Day has earned strong reviews, but opinions about Doomsday remain mixed. Perhaps that will change in December, but it wouldn’t be a shock to see Spider-Man come out on top.
