Sony boss reveals the real reason Spider-Man: Brand New Day made a ridiculous $2.4billion

Spider-Man: Brand New Day has crossed the $2.4 billion mark at the box office, making it the third highest-grossing movie of all time. According to Sony Pictures CEO Tom Rothman, there’s a very good reason for this. 

The fourth Spidey film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe picks up four years after the events of No Way Home, with Peter Parker (Tom Holland) trying to rebuild his life after Doctor Strange’s spell erased the world’s memory of him. 

While he faces isolation and spider-mutations, he’s soon pulled into a new conflict thanks to the rogue telepath, Jean Grey (Sadie Sink). 

Brand New Day has been in cinemas for more than six weeks at this point, where it’s remained in first place at the domestic box office for every single one of those weekends, closely followed by The Odyssey. 

Sony Pictures chief Tom Rothman spoke about the film’s success at the Lumiere Summit in France on Monday, where he credited a rather unusual reason for so many people going to see the film. 

Sony boss says Spider-Man: Brand New Day isn’t just a superhero movie

Rothman argued that Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s success is because it isn’t a superhero movie. He said (via Variety) that it’s “not so much a superhero film, but ‘super-person’ film”.

“The reason that movie has resonated all around the world is because it’s about a lonely guy… It’s like yeah, it’s about friendship. It’s very human. It’s very emotional,” Rothman continued. 

“It’s got plenty of whiz-bang, but that’s not what the secret is. The secret is it’s a relatable story that almost everybody has related to.”

The Sony boss went on to point out the huge turnouts for Obsession, The Odyssey and Toy Story 5 this year, noting how audiences will show up if the movies have a good story at the centre of them. 

He also highlighted the fact that this is the first time since the pandemic and the Hollywood strikes that such a huge variety of genres are performing well, rather than just superhero properties. 

“Movies were cool [this summer],” Rothman said. “They became cultural again… because they were culturally significant.”

What’s next for Spider-Man?

Given Brand New Day has now made an eye-watering $2.4 billion, you’d assume Sony would want to see Peter Parker swinging back into cinemas as soon as possible.

The film certainly isn’t being treated as the end of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man era. Brand New Day closes with the promise that “Spider-Man will return”, while Marvel boss Kevin Feige has previously said its story will lead into “more Spider-Man films” as well as the future of the wider MCU.

Surprisingly though, Spider-Man 5 hasn’t actually been officially announced yet, and exactly what those future movies will look like is slightly complicated by the unusual relationship between Sony and Marvel.

Sony still holds the film rights to Spider-Man while financing and distributing Holland’s solo movies. Marvel Studios handles the creative production and works alongside it to integrate Peter Parker into the MCU. 

The two studios have famously had to renegotiate their partnership before, with Spider-Man briefly looking like it was set to leave the MCU altogether when talks collapsed in 2019.

But despite some claims online, there’s no official confirmation that the Sony and Marvel partnership ends with Brand New Day. The precise terms haven’t been made public, meaning we don’t actually know how many more solo Spider-Man movies – if any – are already covered by their current agreement.

Producer Amy Pascal did previously suggest there were plans for plenty more, telling Fandango in 2021 that No Way Home wouldn’t be “the last Spider-Man movie” Sony made with Marvel and that the studios were preparing to move onto “the next three” with Holland.

“Marvel and Sony are going to keep going together as partners,” she said. However, reports at the time stressed that another trilogy hadn’t actually been formally agreed on. 

One thing that has changed since then is Sony’s approach to its other Spider-Man characters. After the likes of Madame Web, Morbius and Kraven the Hunter failed to launch Sony’s interconnected franchise, Rothman recently confirmed there aren’t currently any more spinoffs in active development.

“We never looked at it as the ‘Sony-Marvel Universe’,” he told Variety. “We looked at if there were worthwhile movies to make with other characters. At the moment, there are none in active development.”

That leaves Holland’s Spider-Man in a pretty interesting position. Sony’s wider universe might be on ice, Spider-Man 5 hasn’t been announced yet, and we don’t know the details of its current agreement with Marvel.

But after six weeks at number one and $2.4 billion at the box office, there are approximately 2.4 billion reasons for both studios to keep making it work.

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Featured image credit: Sony Pictures