Brand New Day Falls Short of a No Way Home Spider-Man Record
Spider-Man: Brand New Day arrived in theaters today, marking Peter Parker’s (Tom Holland) first big-screen appearance since 2021’s genre-defining Spider-Man: No Way Home. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, the film picks up four years after that predecessor’s memory-erasing finale, with Peter now living as a solitary full-time hero while MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon) no longer remember who he is. While the movie has barely premiered, Thursday preview screenings shattered box office predictions, with Spider-Man: Brand New Day surpassing previews of Avengers: Endgame and No Way Home. Reviews landed just as strong, with the movie earning a Certified Fresh score from critics and an audience score high enough to tie an MCU record. By nearly every measure, Brand New Day looks like a certified smash. Yet one specific number tied to its opening has come in just shy of No Way Home.
Brand New Day has officially earned an A grade from CinemaScore, the market research firm that polls opening night audiences on their reaction to a new release. That result puts the film in strong company, matching the same A grade previously handed to Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far From Home. It falls one full grade short, however, of the A+ that No Way Home earned in 2021, a distinction that places the 2021 blockbuster in an incredibly small club. Only one other Spider-Man film in history, the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, has ever managed to earn that top A+ mark from CinemaScore.
Can Spider-Man: Brand New Day Beat No Way Home at the Box Office?
The CinemaScore gap raises an obvious question for a franchise defined by box office superlatives. No Way Home opened to $260.1 million domestically in 2021, a figure still lodged in the all-time top five, and closed its global debut weekend at $587.2 million on its way to a final worldwide haul of nearly $1.9 billion. Brand New Day enters the conversation with real momentum behind it. Thursday preview receipts alone reportedly reached $75 million, comfortably ahead of the $50 million No Way Home generated in its own previews and enough to eclipse the previous previews record held by Avengers: Endgame, which had stood since 2019.
Industry trackers have floated opening weekend projections ranging from a conservative $195 million up to figures north of $300 million, with some prediction markets giving the film a strong chance of clearing $260 million domestically. Reaching that range would place Brand New Day within striking distance of No Way Home’s mark, though matching or exceeding it remains uncertain until the full three-day tally is in. It’s worth noting that the film is also generating these numbers without access to premium large format screens, since Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey continues to occupy the majority of available IMAX auditoriums well into its own extended theatrical run this summer.
Positive word of mouth has done plenty of heavy lifting to keep that upper range scenario in play. Brand New Day carries a 98 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, a figure that ties Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings for the highest audience approval of any film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and edges past the 97 percent audience score currently attached to No Way Home. Critics have responded almost as enthusiastically, landing the film at 91 percent and pointing to its blend of large-scale action, genuine emotional stakes tied to Peter’s fractured relationships, and a more mature performance from Holland. That combination of critical respect and audience enthusiasm leads to the exact word-of-mouth cycle that powered No Way Home to its historic run in 2021. Regardless if Brand New Day reaches the same heights, Sony and Marvel have another genuine box office event on their hands for the rest of the summer.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now playing in theaters nationwide.
