“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” continued its blistering pace in theatres, collecting $144.5 million domestically over its second weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday, while Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” set a new high for the director.
The Sony-Marvel release has accrued $1.67 billion worldwide in just 10 days of release, putting it on a trajectory to be among the biggest blockbusters ever. Domestically, no movie has wracked up a higher total faster.
In US and Canadian cinemas, “Brand New Day” has grossed $655.1 million thus far. Overseas, it’s already surpassed $1 billion.
It took only seven days for “Brand New Day” to become the highest grossing movie of the year, easily displacing “Toy Story 5” ($1.07 billion worldwide). No Sony film has ever cleared $100 million in its second weekend before. It came close to toppling the best sophomore frame on record: “The Force Awakens,” with $149.2 million in 2015.
Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” also crossed $1 billion. In its fourth weekend, the Universal Pictures release added $31.5 million domestically to bring its global total to $1.1 billion.
Nolan’s Homeric epic is the director’s first movie to reach that threshold since 2012’s “The Dark Knight Rises.” It now ranks as Nolan’s biggest box-office hit ever, not accounting for inflation, eclipsing both “The Dark Knight Rises” ($1.08 billion) and 2009’s “The Dark Knight” ($1 billion). Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” ($975 million) ended just shy of the milestone.
A big part of that success, of course, has been on IMAX. With $147.3 million domestically on the company’s large-format screens, “The Odyssey” now ranks as IMAX’s highest grossing domestic release of all time.
“The Odyssey” still has one major market left. It opens in China on Friday.
“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” and “The Odyssey” have helped drive Hollywood to its best box-office year since the pandemic. Ticket sales are running 18.5 per cent ahead of last year, according to Rentrak. There have already been five $1 billion movies — more than any year since 2019. The other two were “Michael” and “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.”
Rentrak forecasts that the overall summer theatrical revenue will reach $4 billion on Monday. That seasonal mark has long been a sign of thriving business for Hollywood. Since the pandemic, the only summer to surpass $4 billion was 2023, when “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” drove ticket sales.
According to Rentrak, summer revenue is just $14.8 million shy of $4 billion through Sunday.
