A Massive Star Wars Record Was Just Broken In The Most Surprising Way
But what does it mean?
No one expected Spider-Man: Brand New Day to flop — its box office projections were set incredibly high for a reason — but the speed at which it surpassed those projections, going on to break record after record, was something of a shock, too. In just a month and change, Marvel’s fourth Spider-Man film has emerged as the highest-grossing film of the year, toppling The Odyssey and Obsession at this year’s box office. But it hasn’t stopped there, either: with its domestic gross now charting around $936 million, it’s now the highest-grossing film (in the U.S.) ever, dethroning the last-reigning champ, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, for the title.
Brand New Day is still enjoying a comfortable run in theaters, so it could easily wind up grossing $1 billion before its time is up, inching closer to the #2 and #1 highest-grossing films of all time: Avengers: Endgame and Avatar. If nothing else, its success has affirmed that a character like Spider-Man remains the exception to pesky unknowns like superhero fatigue. But this upset might also make Star Wars fans just a little uneasy about the stock of their favorite franchise.
Why this shakeup matters
The Force Awakens is no longer the highest-grossing film in the U.S.
The Star Wars sequels may be looked on with more caution and regret now, but when The Force Awakens first hit theaters in 2015, the consensus the world over was of unmitigated excitement. There hadn’t been a new Star Wars story on the big screen in over a decade, and for years it seemed like there might never be again. The Force Awakens was total nostalgia-bait, sure — but it still gave fans everything we thought we wanted from the saga at that time. The original trio returned as older, wiser mentors, while director J.J. Abrams lightly rehashed the beats of the story we all knew and loved from A New Hope. It was no wonder the film grossed over $2 billion worldwide: The Force Awakens represented the franchise’s triumphant return and a new, exhilarating adventure.
It didn’t take long for such widespread excitement to wear off, unfortunately; ditto for the promise of novelty that Abrams teased in The Force Awakens. The sequels delivered diminishing returns both financially and critically, splintering the fan base, for good measure. Lucasfilm’s big-screen spinoffs also failed to meet the billion-grossing standard, which led the franchise to pull away from moviemaking altogether.
Can Star Wars make a comeback?
Star Wars movies aren’t the juggernauts they once were, but 2027 could change that.
When Star Wars returned to theaters with this year’s The Mandalorian and Grogu, nothing was the same. It was meant to deliver the saga back to the arena it’d once dominated, after its brief stint building out the galaxy on Disney+. But The Mandalorian and Grogu made far less than Solo: A Star Wars Story, the film whose disappointing returns originally inspired Lucasfilm to cool its jets on spinoffs. It was one of many films that most assumed would make easy money, alongside DC’s Supergirl — only to confirm just how unpredictable things had become for major franchises. Disney has been struggling, with only Spider-Man: Brand New Day (and surprisingly, The Devil Wears Prada 2) delivering a clear win for the studio.
And just because Spider-Man broke the spell at the box office, it doesn’t mean the films that follow will be out of the woods. There are doubts that Avengers: Doomsday will reach the same heights as Marvel’s last Avengers film, though Lucasfilm’s upcoming releases might have better luck. With the original Star Wars returning to theaters — and on IMAX screens, no less — just a few months before Star Wars: Starfighter, the franchise could be poised for a real comeback. Spider-Man might not have its top spot for long, but time will determine its fate.
