Spider-Man: Brand New Day is eyeing a $550 million opening weekend at the worldwide box office. Half a billion with no IMAX screens.

Read that number again

Worldwide, ‘Brand New Day’ opening weekend projections stand at somewhere around $550 million. If it pans out, that would certainly be the biggest opening of the year, one of the top five biggest openings of all time, and just shy of the $260 million opening of the previous movie “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”

And it’s doing this while getting completely locked out of the format usually reserved for exactly this kind of movie. Nolan’s The Odyssey — the first film shot entirely on IMAX film cameras — has an exclusive four-week IMAX run beginning July 17, a window that runs straight through Spider-Man’s opening weekend, leaving Brand New Day shut out of the format entirely. Sony’s answer wasn’t to fight for the screens or move the date — the fact that the movie is opening without IMAX didn’t force the sequel to move from its opening day either.

The number doesn’t care

This is the part that should actually worry other studios. Deadline reported that Spider-Man: Brand New Day delivered the strongest first-day presales in five years, while Fandango reportedly confirmed it became the biggest first-day ticket preseller of 2026 — even despite losing IMAX screens to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey during its opening frame. Sony’s leaning on its own premium play instead, debuting the movie as the first-ever film shot for ScreenX, with footage captured on set for the panoramic format, similar to how movies are shot in IMAX.

So no, it’s not IMAX. But a $550 million weekend doesn’t need the biggest screen in the building to still be the biggest thing in theaters.

What happens when the next tentpole gets bumped off IMAX and doesn’t have a Spider-Man logo to fall back on?