Sony Pictures' Spider-Man: Brand New Day will expand across the Imax network in North America beginning Thursday, August 6, 2026, the studio announced August 3 BusinessWire. The move comes as Universal's Christopher Nolan epic The Odyssey ends its exclusive Imax lock the same day and shifts to select digital locations Deadline.

For audiences, the practical effect is straightforward: one of the biggest films of the year gets the giant-screen treatment just as a rival vacates those premium auditoriums. Imax — the large-format theatre system with oversized screens and enhanced sound — commands higher ticket prices, so every week of exclusivity carries real money for whichever studio holds the slot.

And Spider-Man has been moving extraordinary money. Brand New Day opened to $927 million globally across 90,000 screens, the second-largest opening weekend in motion-picture history, behind only Avengers: Endgame's reported $1.22 billion Deadline. Of that haul, $23 million came from Imax screens in China, Japan and South Korea combined.

The Asia numbers are striking on their own. In China, Imax generated $19 million — the biggest Imax opening weekend in Spider-Man franchise history — and accounted for 16% of the film's total opening weekend box office in that market. South Korea delivered $2.4 million on Imax, a record for the biggest Imax opening weekend ever in the country. Japan, despite sharing its Imax schedule, contributed $2.2 million, with Imax representing 18% of the opening gross Deadline.

Imax CEO Rich Gelfond noted that the Spider-Man franchise has delivered $365 million in Imax receipts to date Deadline. The North American expansion, then, lets Sony chase a larger slice of a proven revenue stream on home turf.

The Odyssey, meanwhile, is hardly fading. Nolan's film has grossed over $900 million worldwide, with $221 million from Imax alone Deadline. It continues in select digital locations across North America and rolls out internationally: South Korea on August 5, China on August 14, and Japan on September 11 Deadline.

Sony Pictures lists Brand New Day as "Now Playing Exclusively in Movie Theatres" on its official website Sony Pictures, and the franchise's Imax history runs deep: Columbia Pictures' The Amazing Spider-Man launched on 307 Imax screens domestically on July 3, 2012, later expanding to 74 Imax theatres internationally that August IMAX.

What stands out here is the calendar choreography. Two blockbusters are trading the same premium screens within a single week, each backed by a studio that calculated the exact handoff down to the day.