Avengers Endgame’s reign at the top of the American box office is officially over. After posting one of the biggest openings in cinema history in 2019, the Russo brothers’ blockbuster has just handed its crown to Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which set a new all-time record in its very first weekend of release. With 360 million dollars taken in three days in the United States, the fourth Spider-Man film starring Tom Holland edges past the 357 million dollars Avengers Endgame made on its 2019 launch. A considerable achievement, since the two films are today the only ones in all of cinema history to have passed the symbolic 300-million-dollar mark in their opening weekend on American soil.
Faced with this new phenomenon, Joe Russo and Anthony Russo, the directors of Avengers Endgame, wanted to congratulate the film’s team on social media. The two brothers posted an image of Spider-Man wearing rings that recall Thanos’s famous Infinity Gauntlet, along with a symbolic message:
“The gauntlet has been passed…”
An obvious nod to the handover between two generations of Marvel blockbusters, as Spider-Man: Brand New Day takes back one of the industry’s most prestigious records. But while the American opening record now belongs to Peter Parker, Avengers: Endgame still holds several major feats. The film remains the biggest worldwide launch in history with 1.2 billion dollars taken in just three days, and is still the second-biggest success of all time with around 2.7 billion dollars in worldwide takings.
For its part, Spider-Man Brand New Day is already posting dizzying figures. The film passed the billion-dollar mark worldwide in just six days, becoming the second-fastest film in history to reach that milestone, just behind Avengers: Endgame, which did it in its opening weekend. With more than 1.15 billion dollars at the worldwide box office after only a week, Destin Daniel Cretton’s film now looks set for an exceptional run. The question now is how far it can go: passing 2 billion dollars looks more and more credible, even if going after Endgame’s final score will remain a colossal challenge. And the timing could work in its favour. With little major competition in the coming weeks, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has an open road to keep drawing audiences the world over.
A success that also confirms that, despite the questions around superhero fatigue, the great figures of the Marvel Cinematic Universe retain exceptional commercial power when they rest on characters already deeply rooted in popular culture. The Russo brothers will nonetheless soon have a chance to take back their own record: their next Marvel film, Avengers: Doomsday, arrives in cinemas on 18 December 2026 with inevitably enormous expectations.
