How the contract works
This contract settles based on domestic (US and Canada) opening-week box office gross, as reported in the final 'Weekly Box Office Performance' tables on the-numbers.com, not on early studio estimates. It resolves by 1 February 2027, once both films have reported their opening-week figures and any other 2026 release has been checked against them. A contract on this question pays $1 if Avengers: Doomsday's opening week exceeds every other 2026 release, and nothing if it does not; if the two films tied exactly, the alphabetically first title would be the deemed winner under the stated rules. A price of, say, 0.30 would mean the market sees roughly a three-in-ten chance of that outcome, and a position can typically be sold before settlement at whatever price the market is offering at that time.
Yes53%
No47%
Probability
How the price has moved
Only one venue, Polymarket, is currently pricing this question, with total volume of $162,767 and a consensus reading of 53%. No cross-venue spread or historical price range has been reported for this market, so there is no documented day-over-day or week-over-week move to point to yet. A reading just above a coin flip, on relatively light volume, reads as a market that sees this as a genuinely open contest between two major releases rather than one with an obvious favorite.
Analysis
Context
Avengers: Doomsday is Marvel Studios' next ensemble film, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, reportedly built around one of the largest casts ever assembled for the franchise, including the return of Robert Downey Jr. in a new role. It is scheduled for a mid-December 2026 release, a slot historically used for event films hoping to combine a strong opening with weeks of holiday-season playtime. Spider-Man: Brand New Day, starring Tom Holland, is scheduled for release earlier in 2026, in the heart of the summer movie season.
The market consensus sits at 53%, which is a modest lean rather than a strong conviction. Only one venue, Polymarket, is actively pricing this question, with total trading volume of $162,767 to date โ a relatively thin market for a headline entertainment question, which means the 53% figure reflects the judgment of a fairly small pool of traders rather than a broad consensus across multiple platforms. That thinness matters: a single large trade or a studio's box office tracking report could move the price more than it would in a deeper market.
The underlying comparison is unusual because it pits two different release calendars against each other rather than two films opening the same weekend. Avengers: Doomsday is positioned for mid-December 2026, a date that benefits from holiday foot traffic across its full opening week, while Spider-Man: Brand New Day lands in the middle of 2026's summer season, when multiplexes are already crowded with competing franchise releases. Historically, Avengers films have set some of the largest domestic opening figures in box office history โ Avengers: Endgame opened to roughly $357 million domestically its opening weekend in 2019, among the largest openings ever recorded, with an opening week well above that. Spider-Man has its own precedent for enormous openings: Spider-Man: No Way Home opened to roughly $260 million domestically in its first weekend in December 2021, during a pandemic-affected box office environment, showing that the character alone can drive record-scale turnout without an ensemble cast.
The case rests on execution rather than brand name alone. Marvel's ensemble films after Endgame and Infinity War, including several mid-2020s releases, did not match the opening-weekend scale of the studio's 2018โ2019 peak, which introduces real uncertainty about whether Doomsday's hype will convert into record-setting ticket sales versus merely strong ones. That history is the likely source of the market's near-even split: enough recent softness in the brand to keep this from being treated as a formality, but enough built-in anticipation around a reported large-scale cast reunion to keep the number above a simple toss-up.
What moves the probability
Release date positioning
Doomsday's mid-December 2026 slot gives it a full opening week during the holiday season, a period that has produced some of the largest cumulative weekly grosses in box office history. Brand New Day opens into the crowded summer season instead, which could cap its ceiling even with a strong weekend.
Ensemble cast and franchise fatigue
Reports of a large returning cast, including Robert Downey Jr., push expectations higher for Doomsday's opening. But several Marvel ensemble films released between 2022 and 2025 underperformed relative to pre-release hype, which keeps the market from pricing this as a near-certainty.
Spider-Man's independent box office record
Spider-Man: No Way Home's roughly $260 million domestic opening weekend in December 2021 shows the character can draw Avengers-scale crowds on its own. That precedent is the single biggest reason this is not a lopsided market.
Thin trading volume
With only $162,767 traded on a single venue, the 53% figure reflects a small number of participants. A bigger tracking report or pre-sale data point close to either release date could shift the price more than in a deeper market.
The case for
- Avengers: Doomsday's December 2026 release gives it a full opening week inside the holiday season, historically the strongest window for cumulative weekly grosses.
- Reports of one of the largest ensemble casts in franchise history, including Robert Downey Jr.'s return, point to unusually high pre-release demand.
- Prior Avengers films have set some of the largest domestic opening figures on record, including Endgame's roughly $357 million opening weekend in 2019.
- If Doomsday's December run avoids major scheduling conflicts with other wide releases, it is positioned to convert hype into record-scale ticket sales.
The case against
- Spider-Man: Brand New Day has its own franchise precedent for enormous openings, including No Way Home's roughly $260 million domestic opening weekend in December 2021.
- Several Marvel ensemble films released since 2022 fell short of their pre-release hype at the box office, suggesting brand name alone no longer guarantees a record opening.
- Brand New Day's mid-2026 summer release could still produce a very large opening week even without the holiday-season boost Doomsday enjoys.
- The market's near-even 53% reading suggests traders see this as genuinely contested rather than a foregone conclusion.
What to watch
Key dates to track include the confirmed theatrical release dates for both films as 2026 approaches, early tracking and pre-sale ticket reports in the weeks before each opening, and the final opening-week figures themselves once reported on the-numbers.com. Any studio announcement moving either release date, particularly Doomsday's December slot, would directly affect how the comparison plays out, since a shift could change which holiday or competing release each film's opening week lands against.
Trade this contract
Open on Polymarket
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