Spider-Man: Brand New Day Is About to Pass Star Wars as the Highest Grossing Domestic Movie Ever

Published 17 September 2026. Words like "tonight" or "next week" refer to that date.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is about a million dollars away from surpassing The Force Awakens as the highest grossing movie of all time domestically, so that should happen Monday or Tuesday. The Odyssey has also just become Universal's most successful film of all time, surpassing Jurassic World, and Netflix has announced it will finally start reporting box office numbers for some of its theatrical releases.

Practical Magic 2 Overcomes a Bad Rotten Tomatoes Score With an Older Female Audience

Practical Magic 2 started out cursed with a horrible Rotten Tomatoes score but overcame it with the power of fandom. It was made for older women: 78 percent of the audience was female, 69 percent were women over 25, and 36 percent were women over 45.

This was not the 40 to 50 million dollars Warner Bros had reportedly been hoping for. Some trades pointed out that other studios hyped that number up and that Warner Bros always expected to come in lower. Still, Warner Bros will take it, especially because Practical Magic 2 was relatively inexpensive to make.

Disney will take this kind of money too. It was just announced that Disney has green lit a sequel to another cult female hit, The Family Stone. Diane Keaton will not return, but almost everybody else is coming back. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is also getting a sequel, part of a wave of turn of the century movies being revived.

Joey King and Maisie Williams Weren't Supposed to Bring an Older Crowd

Joey King and Maisie Williams were presumably cast to bring in younger audiences, so it is worth asking why 36 percent of the crowd ended up being women over 45. Streaming actors not being able to open movies theatrically raises real worry for the upcoming MCU X-Men film. Chris Hemsworth and Jennifer Lopez, both of whom moved more toward streaming, have had similar problems opening films.

Zendaya cannot be in everything, and it is genuinely hard to tell how much Sadie Sink helped open Spider-Man: Brand New Day. We will not know the real answer until the X-Men movie arrives. Hollywood needs to be careful not to get lazy about cultivating new talent and let streaming do all the work. Emma Stone, Scarlett Johansson, Anne Hathaway and Jennifer Lawrence all made their first impressions in theatrical films, and it is fair to ask where the next generation of theatrical breakouts is coming from.

Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock Power Practical Magic 2 in Very Different Ways

Nicole Kidman pioneered the movie star move to streaming and seems very happy there, arguably more successful in that space than she ever was in film. She was not huge in movies originally. She became famous as Mrs. Tom Cruise and then even more famous as the ex Mrs. Tom Cruise, the same year she had an incredible one two punch with The Others and Moulin Rouge. She is also excellent at generating attention in the press, and her red carpet run for Practical Magic 2, including a striking glow up, likely helped the film's success. This film needed that pairing.

Just like the first movie, Practical Magic 2 is really a Sandra Bullock vehicle. Bullock is a savvy producer who works on most of her own projects, more like Margot Robbie and Reese Witherspoon than Kidman, who is more of a producer in name only. Bullock's original heyday was around the turn of the century. She waned, then had a big comeback about a decade later with The Blind Side, which won her an Oscar, followed by more hits, then waned again without ever fully disappearing.

Practical Magic 2 is not performing like a Devil Wears Prada 2, though to be fair the original Practical Magic was not a Devil Wears Prada either. It has opened on par with Bullock's more recent, stronger showings, and it is landing in the same range as other female friendly callbacks like Freakier Friday and the new Mean Girls. Like Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, also a Warner Bros release, it has been positioned to kick off spooky season and then hit digital close to Halloween. Beetlejuice 2 opened around the same time of year with Jenna Ortega, who did a better job pulling in a younger demographic, though she also had her own streaming glow up first, so it is not a hard rule. Expect Practical Magic 2 to follow the same path to digital in early October and do very well there given its strong audience scores.

Hope, The Uprising and a Breakout Weekend for Alan Ritchson's Runner

Overall this was a solid weekend for new releases, with four hitting the multiplex and none of them embarrassing themselves, maybe The Uprising just a little. If you thought Andrew Garfield could sell tickets, you were wrong, though as one commenter put it, he is just waiting for his Ryan Gosling moment, and it took Gosling a long time too. But he sure is in it now.

Reacher's Alan Ritchson finally managed to open a movie, Runner, near the top of the top 10, after his other recent release Motor City had cratered. Owen Wilson, another actor who has drifted toward streaming, is also in it. Much of the credit likely goes to Angel Studios, a distributor gaining real momentum with a built in following, almost like a conservative version of A24, with especially strong marketing in the middle of the country and the South, where Runner performed best. Ritchson recently had a motorcycle incident and has now announced he is getting divorced, right after doing a round of interviews to promote the film, which seemed to annoy some of his more conservative fans.

South Korean actioner Hope narrowly edged out The Uprising at the bottom of the top 10. It has been a huge hit in South Korea and made the festival circuit, starring real life couple Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander, along with co-star Jung Ho-yeon, known from Squid Game season one. Tickets were bought for it, but the two and a half to three hour runtime with trailers and a somewhat soft audience score led to a decision to wait for digital instead. The long runtime and lack of a dubbed option may have hurt its opening, since the rest of the world typically offers both subtitled and dubbed showtimes for Hollywood films. Given how well dubbed overseas content performs on Netflix, offering dubbing here too could help foreign films do better in North American theaters.

As for The Uprising, Andrew Garfield simply does not have enough fans to open a movie, and director Paul Greengrass, despite an impressive resume, is not a name director. Garfield's upcoming Artificial, from name director Luca Guadagnino, has more tantalizing real world subject matter and could do better, though it reportedly had a hard time finding a distributor. Across the board, these films are likely to do better on digital and streaming down the line, since a theatrical release still functions as the best advertising for what comes next because it feels more like a real movie.

Netflix Will Start Reporting Real Box Office Numbers as It Chases Growth

Ironically, as studios have tried to become more like Netflix, Netflix is now trying to become more like the studios, after swearing it never would and after losing out on Warner Bros. Wall Street prioritizes shareholders over customers and employees across Hollywood, and Netflix is a particularly stock driven case since it pays a number of its executives in stock. Netflix has already hit a kind of ceiling as a streaming juggernaut, even after cracking down on password sharing, so it needs a new marketplace to keep showing growth, and that marketplace is theatrical distribution.

Having failed so far to land Warner Bros, Netflix is going to release more movies in theaters, not just in a handful of theaters for a week to qualify for awards as it has before, but to genuinely make money and generate headlines. It has announced it will release box office numbers for a major awards contender, for The Further Misadventures of Cliff Booth, currently still an IMAX exclusive, for another awards hopeful, for Greta Gerwig's Narnia, and for its animated Charlie and the Chocolate Factory sequel. The last two are expected to get full 45 day wide theatrical releases, which is a genuine theatrical rollout.

The likely reason is to make sure theaters, particularly AMC, will actually play the films. AMC was very much against Netflix until it made real money on KPop Demon Hunters, and now it is willing to play ball. There is a theory here, offered without a second source, that studios simply ask theaters for a set dollar figure for a given release, and theaters can supply that money however it comes in, whether from ticket sales, concessions, or A-list style memberships, giving both sides a growth number to point to on Wall Street. Concession stand spending is likely a big part of that equation, though asking audiences to be at the movies four times a week is not realistic without better food and more dine in options.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day Is About to Pass Star Wars, and Avengers Doomsday Is Set Up Perfectly

The other big winners in the top 10 remain Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Coyote versus Acme, with Coyote not on the same level but still looking good. Spider-Man: Brand New Day is technically a Sony movie, but it carries the MCU sauce and a lot of MCU talent, which is why it is about to pass Star Wars as the all time domestic box office leader. That is a sign of where Spider-Man has come and where Star Wars used to stand.

Avengers Doomsday could not ask for a better setup. All it needs to be is good, not even great, and it will probably surpass Spider-Man: Brand New Day at the box office. It is expected to open at over a billion dollars worldwide, potentially the biggest opening of all time thanks to the hype Brand New Day has generated. Avengers Endgame was probably the only film to have opened with a billion dollars across a Wednesday to Sunday international weekend. Brand New Day came close, but Doomsday, riding that momentum, should end up the biggest opening of them all.

The Odyssey Passes Jurassic World, and Universal Faces a Director Search

The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan's take on Homer's epic, surpassing the dinosaurs of Jurassic World proves the power of Nolan and solidifies the age of superstar directors, but it is also an incredible advertisement for IMAX and its new camera, which can now film an entire movie. It should also light a fire under Universal to fix its Jurassic franchise. The original Jurassic World trilogy all made a billion dollars even when the films were not great, but Jurassic World Rebirth fell short.

Gareth Edwards has just dropped out of the next Jurassic film. He got that job after David Leitch also creatively dropped out of Rebirth, and Universal has not yet decided on a new director. Zach Cregger would be the pick, given he is already lined up to work with Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment on an upcoming project, though he is a little busy. That deal should wait until Resident Evil opens this weekend and it is clear his previous hit Weapons was not a one time fluke, but if that goes well, he would be a great choice to run the franchise.

Coyote vs Acme Holds On, While Buddy and Insidious Fade Fast

Coyote versus Acme had a pretty good hold in its third weekend, though it is nowhere near its break even point and cannot even match the disappointing box office of Space Jam 2. Still, it did not embarrass itself and should do well on digital and streaming. It has also finally put Ketchup Entertainment on the map as a distributor, and even though the company has nothing particularly strong lined up yet, being able to point to Coyote versus Acme as proof it can release a movie successfully could help it acquire films at festivals going forward.

Among horror releases, Buddy and Insidious both continued pulling solid numbers, but Buddy is already almost out of the top 10 in only its second weekend. It is still doing better than Oak Street, The Dog Stars and Onslaught, all of which are already gone from the chart, with Onslaught never having made the top 10 at all.

Nielsen Charts Put Reacher on Top as Ted Lasso and Lioness Also Shine

This week's Nielsen charts look a little different because Nielsen had not yet updated its own website, so the numbers had to be pulled from what it provided to the trades. Reacher sits on top with the start of season four, a very good look for Alan Ritchson. On the other end, Stuart Failed to Save the Universe still cannot chart despite its short episodes, but its first season is clearly still supercharging reruns of The Big Bang Theory, likely why it was renewed for a second season so quickly. Ted Lasso's fourth season is charting as if the show never left, and Lioness has never been seen this high on the chart before, another win for Taylor Sheridan and Zoe Saldana.

House of the Dragon is low on the chart, but that is because this tracking period came after season three had already wrapped, and it was also the same week Lanterns premiered, though Lanterns is not on this chart since it premiered at the very end of the tracking week. Next week's chart should show how it actually performed.

Shane Gillis's Tires has slowly grown into a genuine hit for Netflix and has just been renewed for a fourth season, and Gillis will host Saturday Night Live again on October 10th, the same show that almost ended his career before he ever appeared on an episode. By contrast, Nate Bargatze, also made a star by Saturday Night Live, has seen his fortunes wane after his first theatrical movie tanked. He is not stopping, though: he just started a second production company, initially focused on family friendly entertainment, but with plans to try edgier material with the new one. The movies chart overall had nothing too exciting happening, which may be part of why Netflix is pushing harder into theatrical, since streaming still seems to work better for series than for films.

Netflix's Own Charts Reopen the Debate Over Annual Seasons

On Netflix's internal charts, True Crime remains number one among shows, but The Gentleman season two is the more interesting story. It received brutal headlines, particularly around its UK viewership. Some have wondered if that ties to rumors that Meghan Markle would join the next season, though Theo James insisted those rumors were not true. There has also been chatter that audiences are tired of waiting more than a year between seasons, and a report claimed that waiting a year and a half causes a significant viewership drop, though that may only hold true for shows in the middle tier, and the gap between these two seasons of The Gentleman does not feel especially bad compared to other shows.

The bigger picture is that audiences, and the industry, seem to be realizing they want annual seasons again, the way it used to be. The Pit, already at 15 episodes, and Slow Horses are both examples of scripted shows returning every year, alongside reality staples like The Traitors and Love Island USA. Other franchises may need to alternate installments the way Game of Thrones plans to with House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. It feels fine to wait longer for the biggest shows, but the question is trickier for something like Lanterns, which is big in concept but made on a low budget, unlike the relatively inexpensive Slow Horses and The Pit. Lanterns does not have a season two renewal yet, but it should arrive any day.

Pluribus has already finished being written for season two, though it still has to be filmed and is not expected until 2028. That raises a real question about whether streaming services should pay to script a second season before knowing how the first performed, since that approach would not let a show incorporate criticism of its first season, and even a slam dunk season one does not guarantee what audiences will connect with next. Maybe the honest answer is that writers just need to write faster. Leanne also managed to return annually, but nobody seems to care much about its second season yet.

Whisper Man, Jason Statham and a Long-Running GTA 6 Trailer Top the Digital Charts

On Netflix's movie charts, the star studded Whisper Man took the top spot in its first full week. A 20 year old Jean Claude Van Damme movie, new to the platform, is also charting, a testament to his lasting draw. The GTA 6 preview is still being watched a week later on Netflix rather than YouTube, which is worth noting on its own.

On Apple's digital charts, Jason Statham's latest film is a big hit, putting him in similar territory to Van Damme, another reminder that a theatrical release is really more of an advertisement for the digital release that follows. New arrivals Moana and One Night Only are no match for Back Rooms, and Obsession remains in the top 10 as well, part of a broader pattern of recent releases enjoying a second wave on digital, reflecting how the pandemic conditioned audiences to prefer watching new movies at home even with extended theatrical windows. The original Practical Magic is charting alongside its sequel's theatrical run, and Alan Ritchson's Motor City, which flopped in theaters, is sitting just outside the top 10 even while Runner is doing well theatrically, putting him in decent company alongside Statham and Van Damme.

Zach Cregger's Resident Evil and Batman Day Headline the Coming Week

This weekend will show whether Zach Cregger is more than a one hit wonder after Weapons, as his take on the Resident Evil video game franchise opens to fans who so far have not seemed that impressed. There is a lot riding on this movie for him. Separately, Batman Day brings 1989's Batman, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and The Lego Batman Movie back to theaters for the weekend, a chance to see the first two on the big screen with fellow fans. A special one shot comic featuring new stories from the two leading ongoing Batman titles, written by Scott Snyder and Matt Fraction with guest artists, will also be released, though it will likely only be available in comic book stores for now, the same frustrating pattern as recent Marvel and DC crossover comics, even though both of those ongoing Batman titles are genuinely excellent and worth reading.

On the digital side, Oak Street is leaving after about a month, having already fallen out of the top 10, with hopes it finds an audience on digital. Dancing with the Stars returns Tuesday and Wednesday with a two night premiere on ABC and Disney Plus, though no obvious breakout star has emerged yet the way Robert Irwin did last season. Slow Horses season six premieres Wednesday, and having already seen the whole season, it is one of the best and most shocking seasons the show has done, with new seasons already filming. Jack Lowden, rumored for James Bond, is not a perfect fit for the character personally, but he is the best option seen on the shortlist so far.

Thursday brings season two of Netflix's animated Stranger Things, Ryan Murphy's Monster tackling its first female killer, and The Traitors shifting from celebrity contestants to regular people, plus Howard Stern moving his podcast to HBO. Friday rounds out the week with season two of Outlander: Blood of My Blood, season two of Mob Land on Paramount Plus with a third season already green lit and Tom Hardy confirmed to return, and the first two episodes of HBO's eight part documentary about Jay-Z.

Can Resident Evil prove Zach Cregger is more than a one hit wonder?