Spider-Man: Brand New Day Eyeing Another Major Box Office Record in Showdown With End of Oak Street
Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey continue to dominate the late-summer box office, adding more records to their already historic theatrical runs. These two films have commanded a lion’s share of moviegoers’ attention, but that doesn’t mean new releases are going to stop coming out. This weekend sees the debut of director David Robert Mitchell’s (It Follows) original sci-fi thriller The End of Oak Street, which has been the beneficiary of strong word of mouth in the days leading up to its premiere. Critics have praised the film for its ability to blend emotion and genre action in a manner akin to the ’80s Amblin classics it’s trying to emulate. The hope is the positive response will give The End of Oak Street a boost at the box office, but it isn’t going to be any match for Spider-Man.
According to Variety, Brand New Day is projected to retain the No. 1 position at the domestic box office for the third consecutive weekend, earning an estimated $65-70 million. If it performs in line with these expectations, it has a good chance of earning the highest-grossing third weekend for a Marvel movie, topping Black Panther ($66.3 million). The high end of the range would give Brand New Day the second-biggest third weekend of all time, behind only Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($90.2 million).
The End of Oak Street will be the weekend’s highest-grossing new release, but still lag behind Brand New Day by a considerable margin. Projections for the sci-fi film are somewhere between $20-30 million domestically.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day Will Join a Rare Box Office Club This Week
As of August 10 (only 11 days into its release), Spider-Man: Brand New Day stands at $671 million domestically, already good enough for 10th place on the all-time chart (unadjusted for inflation). At the rate it’s continuing to rake in money, it will soar past the $700 million mark in a matter of days, becoming just the seventh movie in history to earn that much lifetime. Brand New Day is also going to vault into the all-time domestic top five by the end of the weekend. Currently, Top Gun: Maverick holds the No. 5 position with $721.9 million. If you add the low end of Brand New Day‘s third weekend projection ($65 million) to its total as of Monday, you get $736 million. And that’s before adding what it will make for the rest of the week. There’s a good chance Brand New Day has topped Avatar by Sunday.
From there, the only drama left will be seeing if Brand New Day can pull off the unthinkable by breaking The Force Awakens‘ all-time box office record. Reports have indicated Brand New Day is now tracking to gross over $1 billion domestically, but box office projections are not an exact science. Things can always change, but right now it’s all but a guarantee Brand New Day will become just the fourth member of the $800 million domestic club. We’re not even a month into its release and it’s nearly cracked $700 million. It’s going to stay in theaters for the foreseeable future, especially as fans return for repeat viewings.
As for The End of Oak Street, some will probably be disappointed to see the box office projection that low, but it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. The estimate is likely a byproduct of how dominant Brand New Day and (to a lesser extent) The Odyssey have been. Not even the rosiest Marvel optimist could have predicted these results for Brand New Day. When Warner Bros. scheduled The End of Oak Street for this weekend, the studio was probably banking on Spider-Man business slowing down, feeling a three-week buffer was enough time for their film to make a splash. Instead, Spider-Man continues to be the talk of the town, leaving every other film in its dust.
This doesn’t mean that The End of Oak Street can’t still surprise, however. Its chances of unseating Brand New Day as the No. 1 movie are nonexistent, but it could still outperform its modest expectations. Over the past could of years, we’ve seen numerous films (particularly those enjoying positive word of mouth) outgross the projections and become bigger hits than expected. August looks like it will be a relatively soft month as far as new releases are concerned, so perhaps The End of Oak Street could stick around with decent legs if audience word of mouth matches the critics.
