Sony’s Tom Rothman Wants ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ to Crash the Oscars Best Picture Race

Superhero movies and the Academy Awards have always had a complicated relationship. The genre has racked up billions at the box office and plenty of technical nominations, but the top prize has remained stubbornly out of reach. Every awards season, the same debate resurfaces about whether crowd-pleasers can ever be taken seriously.

This year, one studio boss is ready to push back on that thinking. Tom Rothman has been vocal about ‘Spider-Man 5’ and the future of Sony’s franchise, but his latest talking point has nothing to do with sequels. It concerns the trophy that has eluded the genre.

According to Deadline, Sony Pictures CEO Tom Rothman believes ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ deserves a spot among the Best Picture nominees at the Oscars. Sony and Marvel are preparing an all-out campaign to land the film a place in the Best Picture race at the 99th Academy Awards. Rothman’s pitch is a simple rhetorical question. He says he asks people he runs into whether there really are 10 films released this year that are better than this film.

The wording is no accident. Rothman pointed to the Academy’s expanded Best Picture field as evidence that the door is open for this kind of movie. He argued the field grew from 5 to 10 slots precisely so voters could recognize quality commercial filmmaking, and he cited Christopher Nolan’s snubbed ‘The Dark Knight’ as the key reason. He also name-checked ‘F1,’ ‘Barbie,’ ‘Wicked’ and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ as examples of crowd-pleasers that earned nominations.

Rothman is also not exactly a stranger to this world. During his tenure at Fox, the studio’s films earned over 150 Oscar nominations and won 3 Best Picture awards. That track record gives his campaign more weight than a typical studio talking point.

The numbers are the first part of his argument. The film opened with a record $168 million on its first day in the US and Canada, topping the $157 million that ‘Avengers: Endgame’ made on its opening Friday. It went on to break the ‘Avengers: Endgame’ record for the biggest North American opening weekend. The film has now pulled in more than $2.5 billion worldwide, finishing more than $736 million ahead of the second-biggest earner of 2026.

Still, box office glory and awards traction are two very different things. Gold Derby’s current projection of the top 10 films with the best chance at a nomination lists ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ far down the list, while ‘Dune: Part Three,’ which is yet to be seen, sits among the front-runners. The film is also not a critical slam dunk. Variety’s review described it as a mature but arduous adventure that tries too hard despite good action.

That mixed critical picture makes the campaign a real test of the Academy’s willingness to reward blockbusters. Rothman, though, has sounded confident about this film for a long time. He said earlier that he had seen all the dailies and expected it to be one of the most surprising and terrific movies in the franchise.

The production itself had a famously bumpy road. Tom Holland persuaded Rothman to delay production so he could also film Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey,’ a shift Holland believes almost saved the movie because it allowed Destin Daniel Cretton to come aboard as director. That decision may now look like a significant piece of the film’s awards story.

Whether the Academy will bite remains to be seen. Voters have often nodded to blockbusters in technical categories while keeping them away from the big prize. But with a historic gross, a studio chief willing to stump on its behalf and a ballot with room for 10 films, this may be the strongest case the genre has ever made.

If the campaign works, ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ would become the first movie of its kind to break through. If it doesn’t, Rothman’s question will still hang over awards season.