Apparently, making almost $2.5 billion at the box office wasn’t enough.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is reportedly heading back to theaters for a special re-release—and this time, we’re getting footage that wasn’t included in the original cut.
And one of those deleted scenes has me particularly interested.
Rosario Dawson’s Claire Temple is coming back.
Dawson has previously mentioned that she filmed a scene for Brand New Day, but unfortunately it ended up on the cutting-room floor. Now it sounds like we’re finally going to get to see it.
For anyone who wasn’t watching the Marvel Netflix shows religiously back in the day, Claire Temple was basically the unofficial nurse of the street-level Marvel Universe. She patched up Daredevil, crossed paths with Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist, and appeared in The Defenders. She was one of the characters who helped connect all those shows together.
So yeah, I definitely want to see what she was doing in Brand New Day.
And apparently Claire isn’t the only surprise. The re-release is expected to contain additional footage beyond Dawson’s deleted scene, although nobody is saying exactly what else we’re getting yet.
Of course, let’s not pretend this is entirely about giving fans a few cool deleted scenes.
Sony smells a record.
Brand New Day has already become the highest-grossing movie ever at the domestic box office, with approximately $950.7 million in North America, and has climbed to roughly $2.495 billion worldwide.
It’s also now Sony’s biggest movie ever, blowing past Spider-Man: No Way Home and its $1.92 billion worldwide haul.
But there’s still one Marvel movie sitting above it.
Avengers: Endgame.
And that race just became a little more interesting.
Disney recently put Avengers: Endgame: Encore back into theaters as part of the buildup to Avengers: Doomsday. Apparently people were more than happy to assemble again, because the re-release pulled in another $86 million worldwide, bringing Endgame to approximately $2.885 billion.
Which means Brand New Day is currently about $390 million behind Endgame.
That’s still a LOT of money.
But Sony apparently isn’t finished swinging yet.
There isn’t a release date for the extended Brand New Day run, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Sony waits for a relatively quiet weekend when it can grab as many IMAX and premium-format screens as possible. They’ve done this before. No Way Home returned to theaters over Labor Day weekend in 2022 with an extended version and made another $9.3 million domestically.
Sony has actually been playing this game for a long time. Back in 2002, they even brought Sam Raimi’s original Spider-Man back to theaters as a double feature with Men in Black II.
But this time there’s a much bigger prize sitting on the table.
At this point, the all-time box-office chart is basically becoming Marvel vs. Marvel, with Spider-Man trying to swing past the Avengers.
Can Brand New Day find another $390 million?
That’s a pretty enormous hill to climb for a movie that’s already been in theaters for months.
But considering this movie has already made two and a half BILLION dollars, I’m starting to think betting against Spider-Man might not be the smartest idea.
And let’s be serious.
I’m going back just to see Claire Temple.
