Spider-Man Just Rewrote Box Office History, and No Franchise Has Ever Done What It Just Did

Box office records tend to fall slowly, sometimes taking more than a decade to finally give way. That’s exactly what made 2015’s ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ feel untouchable at the domestic box office, holding the all-time North American crown for more than 10 years while franchise after franchise tried and failed to dethrone it.

That reign is officially over. Sony’s ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘ has climbed past the $936.66 million domestic gross of ‘The Force Awakens’ to become the highest-grossing movie in history at the North American box office, unadjusted for inflation, with a current running total of $936.77 million.

That milestone comes with an even bigger implication buried inside it. With ‘Brand New Day’ now sitting alongside 2021’s ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ among the top five highest-grossing domestic releases of all time, Spider-Man has become the only franchise with two separate films in that elite group, a distinction neither the Avengers nor Avatar franchises can currently claim.

SPIDER-MAN is now the only franchise with two films in America’s top five highest-grossing movies of all time. Neither Avengers nor Avatar has more than one entry:

1️⃣ Spider-Man: Brand New Day — $936.8M (2026; Sony)
2️⃣ Star Wars: TFA — (2015; Disney)
3️⃣ Avengers: Endgame —… pic.twitter.com/oFKWcNjJtm

— Global Box Office (@GlobalBoxOffice) September 16, 2026

The Destin Daniel Cretton-directed sequel, starring Tom Holland and Zendaya, opened on July 31 and immediately began rewriting the record books. It launched with the biggest domestic opening weekend of all time at $360 million, surpassing the mark previously held by ‘Avengers: Endgame,’ and went on to post the highest-grossing first week in domestic box office history.

From there, the film became the second-fastest movie ever to cross $800 million domestically, doing so in just 19 days, and later became only the second film ever to pass $900 million domestically. Along the way, it held the top spot at the domestic box office for six consecutive weekends before finally being dethroned by ‘Practical Magic 2,’ with ‘Resident Evil’ expected to overtake it during its eighth weekend of release.

Despite the historic dollar figure, ‘Brand New Day’ still trails ‘The Force Awakens’ in one important respect: ticket sales. The new Spider-Man film has sold around 75 million tickets so far, compared to the roughly 110 million tickets ‘The Force Awakens’ sold over a decade ago, a 35 million ticket gap that reflects how much average ticket prices have climbed since 2015.

That distinction matters for understanding the record in context, since dollar totals unadjusted for inflation don’t tell the whole story of a film’s cultural reach. Still, the raw gross now belongs to Sony’s webslinger, and that number is the one that will sit atop the domestic chart for the foreseeable future.

Internationally, ‘Brand New Day’ has also been climbing the charts, passing ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ to become the third-highest-grossing film ever worldwide behind only ‘Avatar’ and ‘Avengers: Endgame.’ Globally, the film currently stands at $2.45 billion, trailing 2009’s ‘Avatar’ at $2.92 billion and ‘Avengers: Endgame’ at $2.799 billion.

That worldwide gap may not stay fixed for long, since ‘Avengers: Endgame’ is getting a theatrical rerelease later this month under the title ‘Avengers: Endgame: Encore,’ a move that could extend its lead over ‘Brand New Day’ on the global chart even as the Spider-Man film continues to dominate domestically.

Doesn’t get bigger than this.

Thank you to the fans for helping #SpiderManBrandNewDay make cinematic history – it’s now the highest-grossing domestic release of ALL TIME at the North American box office. Spider-Man: Brand New Day, exclusively in theatres.https://t.co/Gm9mNYn2jJ pic.twitter.com/gh8pnq1nzm

— Spider-Man Movie (@SpiderManMovie) September 16, 2026

‘The Force Awakens’ held its domestic crown for 11 years before finally losing it, and it remains to be seen whether ‘Brand New Day’ can match that kind of staying power. The film doesn’t face direct competition from another major action tentpole until October 16, when the video game adaptation ‘Street Fighter’ arrives in theaters, giving it some breathing room to keep climbing before the fall slate gets crowded.

That crowded stretch is coming fast, though, with ‘Avengers: Doomsday,’ ‘Shrek 5,’ ‘Frozen 3,’ ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum,’ and the 2027 follow-up ‘Avengers: Secret Wars’ all on the horizon. For now, Spider-Man holds a record that took more than a decade to break, and the franchise’s grip on the top of the domestic chart looks stronger than ever.

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