As amazing as it sounds (pun intended), Spider-Man: Brand New Day has become a phenomenal success in theaters with little signs of slowing down. Just this past week, the film became the highest grossing film in the United States (earning over $93.5 million) and is a genuine contender for overall box office champion as it sits at a gross of over $2.4 billion putting it as the third highest grossing film of all time. It is unlikely that Spider-Man: Brand New Day will beat out Avatar, the current champion, or even Avengers: Endgame since that film is being re-released this coming weekend as Avengers: Endgame Encore and the money it will earn will be added to the total of the film. Still, the box office win for the fourth Spider-Man film set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has far exceeded anyone’s expectations. One can only wonder how Avengers: Doomsday will perform.

The fifth Avengers film has already earned over $50 million in pre-sales, which is a terrific sign that the film will do very well. Now the question is will it do better than Spider-Man: Brand New Day or become the all-time box office champion and be the first film to earn over $3 billion? Well, until very recently conventional wisdom had it that we were in the midst of superhero fatigue with films, and for good reason. Ever since the decade began many superhero films had struggled in the box office and/or were not well received by fans. Very few superhero films hit the billion dollar club and even superhero TV shows were not well regarded. It was easy to see why some observers and critics were quick to announce that superhero films and TV shows were in decline as audiences tired of them. The thing is that for a while they had a point given the disappointing box office returns and reception of many films like The Flash, The Marvels, Black Adam, Blue Beetle, Captain America: Brave New World, Kraven the Hunter, Morbius and most recently Supergirl. But, they may have been to quick to jump to conclusions.

While it is easy for critics and snobs to wag their fingers at superhero films and say that audiences grew tired of them. But it is not that simple. What happened was that audiences grew wise to and avoided bad superhero films. What also happened was that the glut of poor and mediocre superhero TV shows and films turned off many and gave them a negative impression about superhero films and TV shows in general. This is why the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) films fell apart in the end and the same thing happened to Marvel films. Sony Pictures released a bunch of bad films like Morbius and Madame Web and while most fans could tell the difference between a Sony film and an MCU film, the average filmgoer does not. It also did not help that in this decade Marvel Studios released many TV shows that were not well done and more than a few films were downright poor. The same thing happened with DC Studios as nearly all of the Arrowverse TV shows degraded into unwatchable crap.

The film studios and executives saw the negative returns for their products and adjusted. The DCEU was dissolved to be replaced with a rebooted DC Universe (DCU); Marvel Studios revamped their plans, pivoting away from their confusing Multiverse Saga and focusing on quality instead of quantity, hence their reduced output. These adjustments had to take time but outsiders expecting immediate results from course corrections still stayed intent with their superhero fatigue mantra. They looked at the less-than-spectacular returns for Superman, Thunderbolts*, and Fantastic Four: First Steps and blamed it on superhero fatigue. But to paraphrase the old saying, rumors of superhero fatigue are greatly exaggerated.

Yes, last year’s superhero films did not perform as well as the executives hoped. However, at that time the superhero film was undergoing a rebuilding process. The genre had to regain the audiences’ trust, build up word of mouth and redeem themselves. Most of the films released in 2025 turned out to be well regarded by fans and critics. People began to see that the films were actually great and this helped spread the word throughout fandom that the films were worth going out to see in theaters much less stream or download. Of course, other circumstances hindered the box office performances. For example, some idiot executive at Warner Bros. thought it was fine to announce that Superman would be streaming barely a month into the film’s theatrical release. This killed off a lot of momentum and desire to head out to theaters to see it. Just look at how Disney took their time to announce streaming releases for their films. To date, there no official streaming dates have been announced for Spider-Man: Brand New Day and it is still doing well. With Marvel, what hampered their films’ performances was the negative reputation the MCU films earned with recent stinkers and this in turn dampened the performances of their 2025 films. It did not help the latter two films released in that year (Thunderbolts* and Fantastic Four: First Steps) came after the recent Captain America film which was not well received and reinforced the idea that modern MCU films were not worth watching in cinemas. But as more and more people watched the films at home or devices, they saw for themselves that the MCU and DCU had course corrected, which helped lead to the spectacular (pun intended again) success of Spider-Man: Brand New Day as it ruled the summer box office.

This does not mean that the box office returns of Spider-Man: Brand New Day automatically dispels the idea of superhero fatigue. Remember that Supergirl came out a month before and flopped hard and put pressure on the next DCU film, Clayface, to succeed. There has to be more film successes and the pressure has increased not just for Clayface but for Avengers: Doomsday and next year’s Man of Tomorrow (the sequel to Superman), Avengers: Secret Wars and Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse. If any of those films falter we’re right back to where we started with the doom and gloom about superhero fatigue, but again it is not so simple. On the other hand, being that the films released are about A-list characters they are expected to do well. In that case, the next bar they have to overcome will be in 2028. With the DCU we have no concrete word on what will be released after Man of Tomorrow, but it in DC Studios’ case it cannot be a film based on obscure characters, though the latest rumor is that a Green Lantern film will follow Man of Tomorrow given the critical and streaming success of Lanterns. For Marvel, although their reboot of the X-Men will undoubtedly do well, we have to see how Ghost Rider and the third Black Panther film perform. It’s important to emphasize that the next few films have to be well made to continue the positive word of mouth. There cannot be another Supergirl, but more Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

A major reason why Spider-Man has done so well has to do with its emphasis on characters and story rather than fisticuffs, although those fight scenes were the icing on the cake. What people come away with from Spider-Man: Brand New Day was its heartfelt story about Peter Parker’s emotional isolation and pain and this was echoed with many of the other characters in the film as well. People could relate to Peter’s loneliness and awkwardness as he tries to fit into society, that is why the film resonated with filmgoers and will continue to do so long after the film leaves theaters. As long as future superhero films continue to focus on quality and characters, the audiences will continue to come and dispel or at least dampen the notion that there is superhero fatigue.