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Though Brand New Day<\/em>\u2019s current box office is undeniably impressive, it\u2019s not exactly surprising <\/em>when you take a beat to remember how consistently well Sony and Marvel\u2019s recent live-action Spider-Man projects have performed in the past. Both Spider-Man: Homecoming<\/em> and No Way Home<\/em> cleared the $100 million mark during their opening weekends, and it only took Far From Home<\/em> six days to pull in $185 million. What\u2019s different here is how quickly Brand New Day <\/em>has shattered records and cemented itself as one of Marvel and Sony\u2019s most fruitful collaborations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The film\u2019s a testament to the fact that people do still have an appetite for big-screen comic book spectacle when the stars align just right. But the things that make this latest Spider-Man project work so well haven\u2019t been present in the Sony-free parts of Marvel\u2019s interconnected universe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Editor\u2019s note: This post contains <\/em>Spider-Man: Brand New Day spoilers<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Even though Jon Watts\u2019 Spider-Man trilogy eventually started mucking around in the multiverse, those films told relatively self-contained stories that were focused on building a grounded world around Tom Holland\u2019s Peter Parker. Taking that approach highlighted the character\u2019s evolution as a solo hero and made it interesting whenever he got roped into situations with the Avengers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Brand New Day <\/em>feels like director Destin Daniel Cretton and cowriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers striking a strong balance between Sony\u2019s solo Spider-Man movies and Marvel\u2019s larger crossover events. There are a handful of classic Spider-Man rogues in the mix, like John Bernthal\u2019s Punisher and Michael Mando\u2019s Scorpion, who get their fair share of bombastic action sequences. Mark Ruffalo\u2019s Hulk is running around too, but Brand New Day<\/em>\u2019s story is really about Peter dealing with the emotional consequences of erasing himself from the world\u2019s memory.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As ridiculous as that all might sound (especially to non-comics fans), they\u2019re details that Sony and Marvel\u2019s previous Spider-Man <\/em>collaborations laid the groundwork for. You could watch Watts\u2019 trilogy and go into Brand New Day <\/em>mostly understanding what\u2019s at stake and how characters got to where they are emotionally. The MCU has struggled to maintain that kind of narrative cohesion during its sprawling Multiverse Saga, which began with WandaVision <\/em>and will end with Avengers: Secret Wars<\/em>. Marvel has been trying to keep far more plates spinning with its shared universe of films and series compared to Sony, which just pumped the brakes on making Spider-Man spinoff movies. But the mixed reactions to trailers for the studio\u2019s next big feature makes it seem like people might not exactly be excited about what\u2019s coming next.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Avengers: Doomsday<\/em> will bring most of Marvel\u2019s heroes together once again to fight a version of Doctor Doom portrayed by Robert Downey Jr. The movie will probably use the multiverse to explain why Doctor Doom looks exactly like Iron Man, and it will definitely bring a handful of the live-action 20th Century Studios X-Men to the MCU. Marvel is clearly using Doomsday <\/em>and next year\u2019s Avengers: Secret Wars <\/em>to put a period on the Multiverse Saga and start fresh after years of the franchise being too unwieldy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The films and Downey Jr.\u2019s rehiring are also Marvel\u2019s way of moving on from the Kang-filled future Marvel gave up on after jettisoning Jonathan Majors. Kevin Feige has been open about new iterations of the X-Men being key to Marvel\u2019s plans for the future. But if the studio wants audiences to really become invested in Charles Xavier and his students, it would do well to lean into some of Brand New Day<\/em>\u2019s strongest beats.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Rather than introducing Sadie Sink\u2019s Jean Grey as a charming telepath, Brand New Day <\/em>presents the character as a teenager willing to destroy anyone who gets in her way as she searches for her sister. Both of the Greys are mutants with natural abilities that make them dangerous, but what pushes Jean to deadly violence is the way the government is hunting them down in hopes of weaponizing them. By framing Jean as one of its villains, Brand New Day <\/em>both keeps its story relatively grounded and gives you a way of understanding how the MCU is touching on classic elements of X-Men comics lore. Jean might not want to hurt innocent people, but she does in a very public way, and it\u2019s easy to imagine her actions becoming the basis for human-mutant tensions going forward.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Brand New Day<\/em>\u2019s ability to tap into those ideas without feeling like a stealth X-Men movie is one of the more impressive things about it. And now that Spider-Man has given us a promising taste of the MCU\u2019s new mutants, Marvel has a chance to keep audiences hooked if it doesn\u2019t drop the ball like Fox.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n