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Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the newest film in Marvel's long-running series about the teenage superhero, part of the huge shared universe of movies produced by Marvel Studios (Disney). The character, played on screen by various actors over the years, has consistently been one of the studio's biggest earners, and this latest instalment is generating particularly strong ticket sales worldwide.

The "$1 billion" figure refers to total worldwide box office takings, a benchmark used across the film industry to signal a blockbuster hit. Reaching it is significant because it places a film in a small, elite group; only a handful of releases manage it each year, and the speed at which a film gets there is often taken as a sign of just how popular it is.

The film's performance also matters because of where it sits in Marvel's wider plans: it is expected to feed into plot lines for the studio's next major crossover film, Avengers: Doomsday, due later this year. Its success is also being watched as an indicator of the broader health of the cinema industry, at a time when several other big franchise films have also crossed the same billion-dollar mark.