The Marvel Cinematic Universe, in recent years, has been rather messy — to say the least.
DC movies, for whatever reason, have always been hit or miss.
Star Wars is lost in space.
The Fast and Furious veered off the road with its last two efforts.
Then there’s Spider-Man…
When was the last time you saw a bad Spider-Man movie?
Ever since we first met Tom Holland‘s Peter Parker, getting a surprise visit from Tony Stark in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, the character has lit up the screen.
Holland’s jittery, earnest, winsome take on the iconic 64-year-old comic iconic was instantly likable, radiating teen-geek charisma.
Each of Holland’s first three solo Spider-Man films has performed better than the last. In 2017, Homecoming grossed $880 million globally. Then 2019’s Far From Home racked up $1.1 billion. Then No Way Home made an incredible $1.9 billion. All scored above 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Some critics say Brand New Day, which opens this week, is the best in the franchise. It’s poised to explode at the box office, tracking to open at $465 million globally. The anticipation for the film is remarkable considering how little Brand New Day relies on the usual superhero franchise pump-up mechanics. There’s no cliffhanger storyline leading into this film, no splashy new villain in the trailers, no end-of-the-world stakes, or parade of returning legacy stars. Brand New Day is simply: Hey, Spider-Man is back. As analyst Jeff Bock put it on X: “Superhero fatigue is real, but Spider-Man fatigue is not.”
The success is all the more remarkable considering Spider-Man’s wonky joint custody corporate stewardship. Peter Parker is like a kid with divorced parents who’s been forced to split his time between mom and dad.
The solo films are Columbia Pictures releases financed by Sony, with Marvel Studios acting as a creative manager, and handling MCU integration in the crossover films. Plus there’s former Sony boss Amy Pascal, who helped engineer the Marvel deal in 2015, and has continued producing the solo movies through her Pascal Pictures banner and acting as a bridge between Sony and Marvel.
(The Hollywood reporter)
