Spider-Man: Brand New Day Just Passed Endgame — Can It Catch The Force Awakens?

Spider-Man: Brand New Day passed Avengers: Endgame’s domestic total on Monday, August 24, moving into second place on the all-time North American box office chart, unadjusted for inflation. Its fifth weekend has widened that lead: Sony’s Spider-Man sequel added an estimated $22 million through Sunday, pushing its running domestic total to roughly $891 million. Only Star Wars: The Force Awakens is still ahead of it.

How it got past Endgame

Endgame’s original 2019 domestic run closed at $858,373,000. Going into its fourth weekend, Brand New Day sat at $854.9 million — close, but still short. It crossed the Endgame mark on the Monday after that fourth weekend, a few days before the estimate that closed out weekend five. Deadline confirmed the pass on August 24, putting the film at No. 2 all time domestically, ahead of every other Marvel release and every other film except one.

The one film still ahead of it

The Force Awakens has held the unadjusted domestic record since December 2015, finishing its run at $936,662,225. Against Brand New Day’s current estimated total of $891 million, that leaves a gap of roughly $45 million — TheWrap put it at around $43 million in its own weekend report, with the exact figure moving slightly depending on which running total is used before final numbers settle.

That’s a real gap, not a rounding error, but it’s also a small fraction of what the film has already made. This is the domestic, unadjusted comparison specifically. Adjusted for inflation, The Force Awakens is further out of reach; nobody currently claims Brand New Day is challenging that version of the record.

Whether it can actually close the gap

Nothing here is decided yet. Brand New Day has now led the box office for five straight weekends, a stretch of dominance without a real challenger until this past weekend’s Coyote vs. Acme and The Dog Stars both opened well behind it. Weekend-to-weekend decline has been steep and fairly typical for a superhero blockbuster — roughly 45% down week four to week five — which is the normal shape of a film’s theatrical run rather than a sign it’s stalling early.

Whether $45 million materializes depends on how much longer theaters keep it in wide release and whether anything in September pulls attention away faster than usual. Avengers: Endgame itself is also returning to theaters September 25 as Endgame Encore, which is an interesting wrinkle for Marvel’s own box office history but not something that would meaningfully close Brand New Day’s gap to The Force Awakens — a theatrical re-release doesn’t retroactively add to a film’s original box office record, and Encore’s own additions would need to be enormous to move Endgame back into the No. 2 slot. For more on what that re-release actually includes, see our Endgame Encore explainer.

Why the record matters

If Brand New Day does pass $936.66 million domestically, it becomes the highest-grossing movie in North American box office history in nominal dollars — a record The Force Awakens has held for almost eleven years. That’s the milestone being chased here, specifically the domestic, non-inflation-adjusted chart. Worldwide, the film has already cleared roughly $2.24 billion, a different number from a different conversation; it hit $700 million domestically faster than any film in history back when this run first started drawing attention, and it was still building toward this position as recently as its fourth weekend.