The tables turned this weekend, with Spider-Man: Brand New Day getting the Marvel Cinematic Universe back on track after an uneven last few years. Still the highest-grossing film franchise of all time, the MCU delivered its first few bombs recently, after seemingly being infallible for the better part of 15 years. The Marvels grossed just around $200 million worldwide, while Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania fell short of both its predecessors. Even the hotly marketed The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Thunderbolts* underperformed in relation to their budgets. But Spider-Man: Brand New Day not only broke the opening-weekend box office records of its predecessor, Spider-Man: No Way Home, but it nearly delivered the biggest debut of all time.

Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and headlined by Tom Holland, the movie broke Avengers: Endgame‘s opening-day record at the domestic box office, grossing $168 million. By comparison, Avengers: Endgame grossed $157 million in its first day of release in 2019. The superhero team-up, directed by the Russo Brothers, ultimately made $357 million domestically and around $1.2 billion worldwide in its debut frame, setting incredible records that seemed almost impossible to break. Remember, it was only in 2002 that Sam Raimi‘s original Spider-Man hit became the first film in history to gross more than $100 million in its domestic debut weekend. Holland’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, on the other hand, grossed $260 million in its domestic debut in 2021. This record has now been broken by Spider-Man: Brand New Day.