u/Tsubasa_sama

Until now, no film has ever made it to day 18 with a lead over TFA. No Way Home was caught on day 7 while Endgame fell at day 15. Today marks the end of TFA's boosted holiday dailies (January 4) and so with a $44M lead, BND is pretty much guaranteed to take the domestic crown and exceed $936M in its run.

To explain why this is basically locked I've been comparing BND with Fantastic Four: The First Steps adjusted by a scale factor so that its final gross is $936m, the exact same as TFA. It was a late summer Marvel movie, so should be suitable comp to assess daily and weekly drops without seasonal factors that hinder direct comparison with TFA or Endgame.

F4 had really bad legs (2.33x), even worse than Endgame (2.4x) which BND is demonstrably dropping better than. This means if BND can climb above the adjusted F4 line, beating TFA domestic will be locked.

Today BND overtook the F4 line for the first time in its run. The respective totals are $794,043,660 and $793,805,914. It did this convincingly, grossing $7.5M versus the adjusted F4's $6.0M. The table below shows the daily comparisons:

Day	BND Daily	BND Total	3.415x F4 Daily	3.415x F4 Total	BND/F4 Daily
1st Thu	72,000,000	72,000,000	83,326,000	83,326,000	0.864
1st Fri	97,843,039	169,843,039	112,235,908	195,561,908	0.872
1st Sat	101,525,640	271,368,679	113,819,604	309,381,512	0.892
1st Sun	88,722,893	360,091,572	92,375,576	401,757,088	0.960
1st Mon	47,064,608	407,156,180	35,586,755	437,343,843	1.323
1st Tue	42,013,437	449,169,617	48,458,287	485,802,130	0.867
1st Wed	32,706,817	481,876,434	29,564,864	515,366,993	1.106
2nd Thu	28,212,094	510,088,528	25,663,380	541,030,374	1.099
2nd Fri	42,779,675	552,868,203	39,793,520	580,823,893	1.075
2nd Sat	56,706,158	609,574,361	52,489,803	633,313,697	1.080
2nd Sun	44,768,553	654,342,914	39,862,670	673,176,367	1.123
2nd Mon	16,685,732	671,028,646	15,520,086	688,696,452	1.075
2nd Tue	20,037,431	691,066,077	21,757,436	710,453,888	0.921
2nd Wed	13,513,702	704,579,779	13,402,670	723,856,558	1.008
3rd Thu	11,300,000	715,879,779	10,070,343	733,926,901	1.122
3rd Fri	18,924,657	734,804,436	15,473,037	749,399,938	1.223
3rd Sat	29,135,374	763,939,810	22,028,526	771,428,464	1.323
3rd Sun	22,603,850	786,543,660	16,403,416	787,831,881	1.378
3rd Mon	7,500,000	794,043,660	5,974,034	793,805,914	1.255

The reason why I believe beating TFA is now locked is because BND has been heavily outperforming adjusted F4 on the weekends and is now starting to significantly outperform it on the weekdays too as evidenced by the multiplier column. On top of that BND is facing virtually no competition for the next month and it will have a labour day boost. It would take a collapse of epic proportions for it to fall behind F4's dailies now.

All hail the new box office king!

TFA has cut down BND's lead from $114m to $64m over the last four days as it enjoyed its final week of the Christmas corridor. Starting from Monday both films will be on a "level playing field", though with that said TFA still had impressive holds going into January.

So to determine if BND's lead is big enough, I have also plotted Fantastic Four: The First Steps adjusted by a scale factor so that its final gross is $936m, the exact same as TFA. It was a late summer Marvel movie, so should be suitable comp to assess daily and weekly drops without seasonal factors that hinder direct comparison with TFA or Endgame.

F4 had really bad legs (2.32x), even worse than Endgame (2.4x) which BND is demonstrably dropping better than. That means if BND can climb above the adjusted F4 line, beating TFA domestic will be locked.

BND has been outperforming F4 on the weekends but struggling to outpace it on the weekdays (dailies below). It currently trails the grey line by $18m, a gap that has not changed much since last Sunday. This weekend will be its chance to strike as the adjusted F4 grossed only $53.9m. BND is targeting $60m+ off of a $11.3m Thursday and will need to gross well above that to make beating the TFA record more likely than a coin flip.

We are now at a crucial point in the run where the gap between the F4 and TFA line narrow. If BND fails to make a dent this weekend then the chance of it getting the record is going to begin to slip next week.

Dailies are below:

Day	BND Daily	BND Total	3.415x F4 Daily	3.415x F4 Total
1st Thu	72,000,000	72,000,000	83,326,000	83,326,000
1st Fri	97,843,039	169,843,039	112,235,908	195,561,908
1st Sat	101,525,640	271,368,679	113,819,604	309,381,512
1st Sun	88,722,893	360,091,572	92,375,576	401,757,088
1st Mon	47,064,608	407,156,180	35,586,755	437,343,843
1st Tue	42,013,437	449,169,617	48,458,287	485,802,130
1st Wed	32,706,817	481,876,434	29,564,864	515,366,993
2nd Thu	28,212,094	510,088,528	25,663,380	541,030,374
2nd Fri	42,779,675	552,868,203	39,793,520	580,823,893
2nd Sat	56,706,158	609,574,361	52,489,803	633,313,697
2nd Sun	44,768,553	654,342,914	39,862,670	673,176,367
2nd Mon	16,685,732	671,028,646	15,520,086	688,696,452
2nd Tue	20,037,431	691,066,077	21,757,436	710,453,888
2nd Wed	13,513,702	704,579,779	13,402,670	723,856,558
3rd Thu	11,300,000	715,879,779	10,070,343	733,926,901
3rd Fri	-		15,473,037	749,399,938
3rd Sat	-		22,028,526	771,428,464
3rd Sun	-		16,403,416	787,831,881
3rd Mon	-		5,974,034	793,805,914
3rd Tue	-		9,026,046	802,831,961
3rd Wed	-		5,663,077	808,495,038
4th Thu	-		5,086,192	813,581,230
4th Fri	-		8,532,705	822,113,935
4th Sat	-		13,047,803	835,161,738
4th Sun	-		9,259,236	844,420,975

On Monday morning BND had a $113m lead over TFA. That lead grew to as much as $124m on Tuesday before TFA pegged it back to $115m after weekend 2, based on the current estimates. With only one week of holiday weekdays left, TFA is quickly running out of time to close the gap.

Nevertheless, a >$100m lead can disappear very quickly, for comparison Endgame was $109m ahead after weekend 1, had dropped to $81m after weekend 2, and astonishingly was overtaken less than a week later by TFAs monstrous second weekdays. It ended its run almost $80m behind.

So to determine if BND's lead is big enough, I have also plotted Fantastic Four: The First Steps adjusted by a scale factor so that its final gross is $936m, the exact same as TFA. It was a late summer Marvel movie, so should be suitable comp to assess daily and weekly drops without seasonal factors that hinder direct comparison with TFA or Endgame.

F4 had really bad legs (2.32x), even worse than Endgame (2.4x) which BND is demonstrably dropping better than. That means if BND can climb above the adjusted F4 line, beating TFA domestic will be locked.

BND has closed the gap from $41m a week ago to just $18m today and looks ready to break through the line. Barring a collapse in the next set of weekdays I think it will. These are the dailies it will need to hit in the next week to do it:

Day	Brand New Day	3.415x F4	Brand New Day Dailies	3.415x F4 Dailies
2nd Fri	$553,089,000	$580,823,893	$43,000,472	$39,793,520
2nd Sat	$610,089,000	$633,313,697	$57,000,000	$52,489,803
2nd Sun	$655,089,000	$673,176,367	$45,000,000	$39,862,670
2nd Mon		$688,696,452		$15,520,086
2nd Tue		$710,453,888		$21,757,436
2nd Wed		$723,856,558		$13,402,670
3rd Thu		$733,926,901		$10,070,343
3rd Fri		$749,399,938		$15,473,037
3rd Sat		$771,428,464		$22,028,526
3rd Sun		$787,831,881		$16,403,416

If BND can gross $132m in week 3, then it will overtake F4 adjusted. This would require a 55% week-to-week drop.

The final comp on the chart is another late summer Marvel movie: Deadpool & Wolverine, again adjusted by a scale factor to end at $936m. This serves as a floor for BND to stay ahead of. It is demonstrably dropping worse than D&W which had a 3x multiplier, so if it were to fall below its line, there would be no way for it to recover and get back ahead of TFA. The lead has remained steady at ~$70m throughout this week so there is little sign of BND falling below that.

Overall I think beating TFA is nearly locked, and if it can hit $788m by the end of weekend 3 that will seal the deal as for it to fail to beat it from that point it would need to collapse worse than a late summer MCU movie that itself collapsed worse than Endgame.

It's almost $125 million ahead of TFA, which is a simply staggering number considering TFA had a holiday boost as well. With that said, TFA continues to go almost vertical until day 18 while Spidey will not have the luxury of summer holiday weekdays for much longer, so I wanted to compare it with two other late summer movies so that we can factor out the calendar configuration.

Step in Deadpool & Wolverine (July 26th 2024) and Fantastic Four: The First Steps (July 25th 2025). By themselves Spidey dwarfs their daily grosses, so I have adjusted them by a scale factor that would put their final gross equal to TFAs (notice that they all converge at the end of the graph).

F4 had horrible legs, so that means if Spidey can get ahead of it at any point in its run, I would expect TFAs record to be toast. Right now it trails by $36m. The "adjusted F4" had a $29.5M Wednesday, a $25.7M Thursday and a $132.1M second weekend, which seems beatable!

The adjusted "DP&W" comp and TFA serve more as a floor. Both had good multipliers for movies that opened huge, so that means if Spidey falls behind them at any point in its run, I would expect TFAs record to be safe. TFA made $149.2M in weekend 2 while adjusted DP&W made $142.4M. Both totals again seem beatable so Spidey should extend its lead and remain safely above both going into week 2.