‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Just Made Cinema History with a Format Nobody’s Ever Seen Before
Premium theatrical formats have become one of the biggest battlegrounds in modern moviegoing, with studios increasingly leaning on IMAX, Dolby, and other specialty screens to justify getting audiences off their couches. But every so often, a film manages to introduce something genuinely new to that competition, rather than just another variation on the same idea.
‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘ has found itself at the center of exactly that kind of moment, thanks to a partnership that’s been quietly building since earlier this summer. While the film notably skipped IMAX screens entirely, due to that format being locked up by Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey,’ it’s made up for that absence in a way no Marvel movie has attempted before.
The film has become the first ever to be “Shot for ScreenX,” a new premium large format initiative from Korean cinema technology company CJ 4DPlex. Unlike standard ScreenX presentations, which typically reformat existing footage for the panoramic format after the fact, this version was built from the ground up, with a dedicated crew capturing footage specifically designed for the company’s immersive 270-degree auditoriums.
That distinction matters because ScreenX has been around for years, expanding a film’s picture beyond the main screen and onto the side walls of the theater to create a fuller field of view. What’s different here is that CJ 4DPlex’s team was physically present on set during production, filming supplemental footage in real time rather than digitally extending scenes afterward.
Speaking about the collaboration in a featurette, director Destin Daniel Cretton confirmed just how unprecedented the partnership was. According to GamesRadar+, Cretton explained that the ScreenX team came directly to set to capture footage for the wings of select scenes, calling it “this is a first.”
The scenes chosen for the treatment reportedly include some of the film’s biggest set pieces, among them Spider-Man swinging and diving through New York City, an extended tank chase sequence, a confrontation involving Frank Castle’s van, and a prison fight against The Hand’s ninja assassins. Each of those moments was specifically designed to fill a viewer’s peripheral vision, rather than simply stretching existing footage to fit the wider screen.
This marks the third Spider-Man film to receive the ScreenX treatment overall, following 2019’s ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home,’ which became the character’s first entry in the format. Several other recent MCU releases, including ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ and ‘Thunderbolts*,’ have also played in ScreenX, though none of those films included footage actually captured during production the way ‘Brand New Day’ has.
The rollout has already proven commercially significant as well, with advance ticket sales reportedly delivering the highest 24-hour presale total in ScreenX’s history. That kind of demand suggests audiences are genuinely excited about the format, not just settling for it as a consolation prize in IMAX’s absence.
With ScreenX currently available in roughly 140 locations across the United States and Canada, this expanded collaboration could end up reshaping how future blockbusters approach premium format planning from the very start of production, rather than treating it as an afterthought layered on in post. For a franchise built on scale and spectacle, giving audiences a true 270-degree view of Spider-Man swinging through the city might be exactly the kind of immersive selling point theaters need right now.
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