Spider-Man: Brand New Day overtook Avengers: Endgame for the biggest US domestic opening on record, and Iman Vellani says that answers the superhero-fatigue argument more cleanly than any studio speech. The Ms. Marvel actor made the case on the Revenge Of podcast after last playing Ms. Marvel in 2023’s The Marvels.
Iman Vellani on Spider-Man
Vellani said, "People showed up on the first week." She added, "Nobody really believed in superhero fatigue." Those numbers, and that reaction, are the practical takeaway for Marvel: a title can still clear the biggest domestic launch benchmark while the fatigue debate keeps circulating around the business.
Vellani also said, "Nobody really believed that this movie was going to fail and they were over [superhero movies]." She followed that with, "They wanted it to succeed." In her view, the audience response was not a rescue mission but a purchase decision, and the record opening reflects that demand in the most measurable way available.
Marvel Studios and the schedule
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is said to be well on its way to grossing $2 billion worldwide, which puts the opening record in a different league from a one-weekend headline. Marvel Studios also has two Avengers movies, an X-Men title, Black Panther 3, and a Ryan Gosling-starring Ghost Rider on its schedule for the next few years, with Marvel Studios set to turn 20.
Vellani’s remarks land against a mixed run for the wider slate. Supergirl stumbled at the box office a few months earlier, and last year’s Marvel efforts, including Thunderbolts, were well-received but failed to ignite with audiences. The contrast is the useful part: the market is not rejecting the genre wholesale, but it is still separating the titles that can pull crowds from the ones that cannot.
What Spider-Man changes
Vellani said, "I think we're so used to being cynical and assuming that everything new coming out is going to suck and it's all propaganda, or people's attention spans are low." She ended the point bluntly: "No, we can appreciate a good thing when we see it." For Marvel, the near-term read is simple enough — Spider-Man can still open like an event, and the rest of the schedule has to earn that same response.
That leaves one number worth watching next: how much Spider-Man: Brand New Day actually earned in its opening weekend. Until that figure is out in full, the record still says the loudest thing, and Vellani is right to treat it as evidence that the audience is still there when the film gives it a reason to show up.
