Spider-Man beats Avatar 2 in 31 days to become the third-biggest film in history

Dubai: Tom Holland's Spider-Man has done in 31 days what took James Cameron more than a year.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day passed Avatar: The Way of Water over the weekend to become the third-highest-grossing film in cinema history, with a global total of about $2.33 billion after five weekends in cinemas. Only Avatar and Avengers: Endgame now sit above it.

The speed is the story. Avatar: The Way of Water needed a theatrical run stretching well past a year to reach roughly $2.32 billion, and analysts had long treated that number as one of the safer records on the all-time chart. Brand New Day cleared it in a month.

What it has knocked down on the way

The film has been dismantling the top ten in sequence. It passed Titanic, which finished on $2.26 billion, and Ne Zha 2, the Chinese animated hit that closed on $2.27 billion. Those two now sit fourth and fifth.

It is the eighth film ever to cross $2 billion, and it got there faster than anything except Endgame. It is comfortably the biggest Spider-Man film of all time, well clear of No Way Home's $1.9 billion.

Where the money came from

The domestic performance is arguably more remarkable than the global figure. Brand New Day has been the number one film in North America for 31 straight days and has taken $891.5 million there, adding $22.2 million in its fifth weekend alone.

That puts it second on the all-time domestic list behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which took $936 million in 2015. It is running roughly $39 million ahead of where The Force Awakens stood at the same point in its run, which means the record is likely to fall within days rather than weeks.

It has already beaten both films above it globally on home turf. Endgame finished domestic on $858 million and Avatar on $749 million.

Overseas, it has taken $1.44 billion, with China, Japan, the UK and India doing much of the lifting. The split works out at 38 per cent domestic and 62 per cent international.

The two it will not catch

Avatar sits on $2.92 billion and Endgame on $2.79 billion, and neither looks reachable at the current pace. Brand New Day is around $464 million behind Endgame with its weekly takings slowing.

That gap is also about to widen from the other direction. Endgame is due a re-release ahead of Avengers: Doomsday, which will add to a total that is already out of range.

The film itself

Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, Brand New Day picks up with Peter Parker alone, operating as Spider-Man in a world that no longer remembers who he is, watching his old friends move on without him while new threats surface.

Holland returns alongside Zendaya as MJ and Jacob Batalon as Ned, with Sadie Sink, Mark Ruffalo and Jon Bernthal in supporting roles. It opened in July.