‘The Odyssey’ Just Did Something ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Couldn’t Stop From Happening
Summer box office rivalries don’t usually stretch this long, but two of 2026’s biggest theatrical juggernauts have been locked in an unusually close race for weeks now. Both films have quietly become some of the year’s most dominant titles, trading blows at the domestic charts even as one has continued to be treated as the presumptive frontrunner.
That presumption took an interesting turn as the films entered their latest weekends in release. What had felt like a steady, uncontested reign for one franchise suddenly hit its first real speed bump in over a month.
For the first time since Sony and Marvel’s ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ opened on July 31, Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ has claimed the No. 1 spot at the global weekend box office, according to Deadline. The Odyssey pulled in an estimated $45.96 million worldwide over the three-day frame, edging out Brand New Day’s $44.1 million in its sixth weekend of release.
The shift didn’t come entirely out of nowhere. According to Screen Rant, The Odyssey had already briefly overtaken Spider-Man on the daily domestic chart earlier in the week, topping it on both Wednesday, September 2, and Thursday, September 3, before Brand New Day reclaimed the top spot that Friday.
Despite losing the weekend crown, Brand New Day remains a box office behemoth by any measure. The film currently sits at roughly $2.4 billion worldwide, with $1.485 billion coming from international markets and $917.8 million domestically through Sunday, keeping it as the third-highest-grossing movie of all time behind only Avatar and Avengers: Endgame.
Domestically, Brand New Day is also closing in on history. The film is just $13.66 million away from surpassing Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ $936.66 million to become the highest-grossing movie ever at the North American box office.
The Odyssey’s own numbers tell an equally impressive story. According to Screen Rant, the film has already earned back more than six times its reported $250 million budget and now ranks as the 14th-highest-grossing movie of all time worldwide, driven in large part by remarkably strong audience retention deep into its run.
The film’s domestic haul is also closing in on a major franchise milestone. According to ComicBasics, The Odyssey’s cume is positioning it to soon overtake The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s domestic total and become Universal’s second-highest-grossing release ever in North America, trailing only the studio’s own Jurassic World.
Nolan’s epic has also become the director’s biggest film of all time globally, surpassing both The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, while ranking as the second-highest-grossing R-rated movie ever released behind only Deadpool & Wolverine, according to ComicBasics. IMAX has played a major role in that success too, with the format alone contributing over $486 million to the film’s global total, making it IMAX’s highest-grossing release of all time.
Interestingly, both films share a notable connective thread beyond their box office battle, with Tom Holland appearing in Brand New Day and Zendaya starring in The Odyssey, meaning this latest chart flip effectively pits two Holland-Zendaya projects against each other at the global box office.
With both films still playing strong deep into their theatrical runs, the competition between them shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
Which movie do you think will finish with the bigger worldwide box office?
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