Middle East cinemas post record opening for new Spider-Man film
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"Spider-Man: Brand New Day" has recorded the biggest opening weekend in Middle East box office history, according to Empire Entertainment, Sony Pictures' exclusive theatrical distributor for the region. The milestone highlights the growing strength of Middle Eastern cinema markets for major blockbusters, coming even as the wider region has faced disruption this year following the outbreak of the U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict.
Over the four days from 30 July to 2 August, the Tom Holland-led sequel took $18.4 million across Middle East cinemas, with the UAE ($7.4 million) and Saudi Arabia ($5.4 million) its strongest markets, comfortably outpacing recent openers such as "The Odyssey" ($2.8 million in the UAE, $2.6 million in Saudi Arabia). The film also performed well in Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman, and was the tenth Spider-Man film Empire has distributed regionally, dwarfing the $5 million, $7 million and $15 million takes of "Homecoming" (2017), "Far From Home" (2019) and "No Way Home" (2021) respectively. Empire president Mario Haddad Jr said the result reflected audiences increasingly choosing cinema as a destination for entertainment and would set a precedent for the company's future distribution strategy.
- "Brand New Day" set an all-time Middle East opening weekend record
- Took $18.4 million over four days, led by UAE and Saudi Arabia
- Vastly outperformed earlier Spider-Man films and rival release "The Odyssey"
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Two young men in Iran experience a wave of Middle East and North Africa fandom for the latest Spider-Man film, "Spider-Man: Brand New Day", starring Tom Holland. It is distributed exclusively across the region by Empire Entertainment on behalf of Sony Pictures, which has handled every Spider-Man release there for around a decade. Box office figures like these are tracked because they show how much money a film earns from ticket sales in cinemas, and an "opening weekend" is the first few days after release, seen as a key indicator of a film's popularity.
The wider context is that Middle East cinema has been growing as a market for Hollywood blockbusters, with countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia investing heavily in new cinema chains in recent years after both nations lifted long-standing bans on public cinemas. This growth has continued even though the region has seen instability in 2026 following the outbreak of conflict involving the United States, Israel and Iran, which has affected travel, business and daily life in parts of the Middle East.
Comparisons between films' opening figures, such as with the recent release "The Odyssey", are commonly used by the industry and media to gauge relative audience demand and to illustrate broader trends in cinema attendance across different markets.
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Originally published by Variety as “‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Lands Biggest Opening Weekend in Middle East Box Office History”.