The Marvel Cinematic Universe has seen a couple of its biggest releases come from the Multiverse Saga, and Spider-Man: No Way Home is a perfect film for the wall-crawler, but it needed a long wait to be as exciting as it was. Tom Holland’s Spider-Man movies will continue after No Way Home, with the actor already filming his next project.

However, no matter how exciting Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘s story is, I think it is unlikely that it will be able to match Spider-Man: No Way Home, one of the MCU’s best movies, at the worldwide box office. The film was a true juggernaut, and repeating that feat is a daunting task. All due to what made it special in the first place.

Spider-Man Movies Have Always Done Well At The Box Office

Tobey Maguire was the first actor to give life to Spider-Man in modern movies, and in doing so, he became the face of the character for generations. Maguire’s Spider-Man trilogy, directed by Sam Raimi, had a strong box office presence, especially for the time the movies were released. Spider-Man made $821.7 million, which would grow to $890.9 million by Spider-Man 3.

While The Amazing Spider-Man franchise is the least successful out of the three cinematic Spider-Men, Andrew Garfield’s Marvel movies were still immensely profitable. The Amazing Spider-Man earned $757.9 million worldwide, while The Amazing Spider-Man 2‘s global total was a little lower, at $709 million. Then came Spider-Man’s MCU reboot. With Tom Holland’s casting in the franchise, the MCU changed the game.

Holland’s Spider-Man movies are the best at the box office. Homecoming nabbed $880.2 million, which grew to a remarkable $1.13 billion for Far From Home — Spider-Man’s first movie to break the $1 billion mark at the box office — before No Way Home broke records left and right, finishing its worldwide run with a mᴀssive $1.9 billion haul.

Spider-Man: No Way Home Is One Of The MCU’s Best Movies

Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s existence is a miracle. The movie pulled from the character’s entire movie legacy to deliver one of the most emotional, thrilling, and shocking superhero movies to date. One of the most impressive factors in No Way Home is how the Spider-Man movie always keeps the focus firmly on Tom Holland’s Peter Parker. His journey was traumatic.

No Way Home picks right from where Far From Home left off, with the world discovering that Peter is Spider-Man. That felt incredibly fresh for live-action Spider-Man movies and completely turned Peter’s life upside down. It allowed Marvel to start the film at a breakneck pace, with a rapid succession of events that show how dire the hero’s situation is.

Then come the multiverse elements. All three Spider-Men had impeccable chemistry. As the actors have described, it truly felt like Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Holland’s Spider-Men were brothers on screen. The villains were also mostly handled well, with a generational performance from Willem Dafoe as Green Goblin. With Aunt May’s death and Doctor Strange’s spell, the movie fired on all cylinders.

Tom Holland’s Highest-Grossing Spider-Man Movie Needed 19 Years To Be Such A Big Hit

Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s status as an event that united three generations of Spider-Man movies is the reason why it was such a major hit. That is not to say that Holland’s Spider-Man franchise in general is not the most successful one at the box office. However, it is easy to see why No Way Home was so special.

Even though Spider-Man: Far From Home was the hero’s first to break a billion, the natural progression for Holland’s franchise would never have seen a jump from $1.13 billion to $1.9 billion without the other Spideys in it. To get to that level, Marvel and Sony had a 19-year wait to build on, going from 2002’s Spider-Man to the MCU movie.

Maguire and Garfield’s Spider-Men led successful movies at the box office. The wait for them to come back is what helped boost No Way Home‘s performance to that of an Avengers-level MCU movie. Had the actors returned after playing Spider-Man recently, or just one of them had done so, No Way Home would have been unlikely to be as much of a hit.

How Spider-Man: Brand New Day Is Making The Best Choice By Not Copying No Way Home

Given the long wait for Maguire and Garfield to come back as Spider-Man was the main factor behind the anticipation for Spider-Man: No Way Home, I don’t think Marvel could have gotten Brand New Day to be as big a hit as No Way Home if the studio had just immediately repeated the last Spider-Man movie’s premise for it.

That is why making Spider-Man: Brand New Day a street-level movie with the Punisher and the Hulk is a better idea. Marvel can still use crossover elements and include exciting characters while following up on No Way Home‘s ending tease about where Peter Parker could go. However, that does not have to mean that Maguire and Garfield are done.

Now that Spider-Man: No Way Home has already done the Spider-Men crossover once, Marvel has to wait a beat to do so again. The 6-year gap between the Spider-Man movie and 2027’s Avengers: Secret Wars feels like the perfect way to bring back Maguire and Garfield. The film will be multiverse-heavy, and the wait emulates Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s approach.