‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Star Zendaya Just Quietly Became the Most Bankable Star in Hollywood Right Now

Hollywood loves crowning a new box office king or queen every year, but the title rarely stays put for long. Between blockbuster release dates shifting, films underperforming, and a genuinely stacked field of A-list talent all releasing movies in the same twelve-month window, the race for the year’s biggest star can flip multiple times before December even arrives.

For most of 2026, that unlikely crown belonged to Benny Safdie, whose supporting turns in ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’ and ‘The Odyssey’ quietly pushed him past $2 billion in combined worldwide grosses, an especially strange twist given that he wasn’t the lead in either film.

That reign appears to be over. Zendaya is now the highest-grossing star of 2026, overtaking Safdie thanks to the one-two punch of ‘The Odyssey’ and ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ both landing in theaters within weeks of each other.

The math behind that shift is staggering. ‘The Odyssey’ alone has already climbed past $911 million worldwide after just three weekends in release, with Zendaya appearing in the film as the goddess Athena. Add in ‘Brand New Day’s’ massive $927 million global opening weekend, where she reprises her role as MJ opposite Tom Holland’s Peter Parker, and her 2026 total starts to look genuinely historic.

That’s before even factoring in ‘The Drama,’ her earlier A24 release with Robert Pattinson, which has already pulled in more than $107 million worldwide on a modest $28 million budget. Between those three films, Zendaya has been directly involved in some of the biggest box office stories of the year, spanning three completely different genres and target audiences.

It’s a run that industry insiders had been predicting for months, given how stacked her release calendar looked heading into the year. Safdie himself had been positioned as an unusual frontrunner, riding the strength of ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’s’ billion-dollar haul and his supporting role as Agamemnon in Nolan’s epic, but always with the caveat that Zendaya and Holland were expected to pass him once their own tentpoles hit theaters.

What makes Zendaya’s position especially notable is that she isn’t finished yet. ‘Dune: Part Three’ is still on the way in December, giving her a fourth major release this year and another likely nine-figure or billion-dollar contender to add to her total before the calendar turns over.

That kind of volume has box office analysts drawing comparisons to some of the biggest single-year runs in recent memory, including Brie Larson’s 2019 stretch through ‘Captain Marvel,’ ‘Avengers: Endgame,’ and ‘Just Mercy,’ which combined for roughly $3.98 billion worldwide and still stands as the benchmark for a single actor’s yearly total. With three months still left before ‘Dune: Part Three’ even arrives, Zendaya already has a real shot at challenging that record.

Whether she ultimately holds onto the crown through the rest of the year remains to be seen, especially with Holland’s own franchise commitments and a potential ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ appearance still looming. For now, though, 2026 belongs to Zendaya in a way that few actors ever get to experience in a single calendar year.

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