It’s been a rough few weeks for physical media fans, and while Rockstar Games got that trend started with their Grand Theft Auto 6 announcement, it was Sony PlayStation that seemed to shift that trend into overdrive. Sony sent shockwaves through the gaming world when they revealed they would cease releasing games on disc starting in 2028, which drew criticism from just about everyone, including pizza chains. It turns out fans aren’t letting it go either, as a new piece of Spider-Man: Brand New Day Marketing has received constant trolling as a result. The question then becomes, will this blowback actually affect the box office for Spider-Man: Brand New Day?
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While much of the focus has been on the PlayStation division of Sony, there’s a lot happening on the movie studio side as well, including the marketing push for the highly anticipated Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Reactions to the trailers and marketing have been overwhelmingly positive to this point, but after Sony tweeted “30 days 🕷️👀”, fans filled the replies with snarky comments and trolls, frequently bringing up Sony’s physical media decision.
@jester_to_lords had a brilliant response, asking “if we buy the movie afterwards, will we own it or are we just renting it until the license expires?”. The tweet was then accompanied by a Hilarious image of Indiana Fever star Sophie Cunningham doing her meme point to a button to cancel a pre-order for the PlayStation 6. @guruurajYsawant posted the image where Sony highlighted how you could simply trade physical games at retail and sell them to another person or even lend them to a friend, which was a shot at Xbox at the time. The caption “how ironic!” Completes the jab, and it’s pretty on the money.
PlayStation Fans Point Out Sony’s Big Mistake (But It Won’t Hurt Spider-Man: Brand New Day)
The hits kept on coming, too, with @nate_x’s perfect image that uses Sony’s Play Has No Limits slogan but marks out the No. Meanwhile, @kitty_bit_games is just done giving Sony money, writing, “Think I’ll just dip into my physical games backlog instead of giving you anymore money.” @ElaraVtuber put it pretty succinctly, writing, “Sony. Not even Spider-Man can save you from what’s happening right now.”
I tend to agree with that latter point, as it surely does not seem like the best time for Sony to be tweeting about a project they want you to pay money to see, especially since they haven’t actually addressed fans about the change since the decision was made public. That said, I honestly don’t think this will affect Spider-Man: Brand New Day at the box office, and there are a few reasons why.
The first is that, simply put, this is Spider-Man, and like Batman, that name has huge cache. Even with superhero film struggles as of late, this is still a Spider-Man movie and a main one in the franchise with two hugely popular actors in Tom Holland and Zendaya. If this were, I don’t know, Typeface the movie, then yes, a boycott could happen. For Spider-Man though? I just don’t see it having a profound effect.
The second reason is the film’s connections to Avengers: Doomsday, which is at this point likely the most anticipated movie of the year, even outside of the superhero fandom. That film is turning into a true event, and with Brand New Day likely setting the stage for that film in a big way, the pull of Doomsday could very well be enough to overcome people on the fence about heading to the theater.
Granted, if Sony were to address this and make fans feel better about what’s happening or even reverse course, this could all change dramatically. That said, there’s also the chance Sony addresses it and somehow makes it worse, and at that point, perhaps there is a chance that the fallout could affect Spider-Man’s box office. As it stands though, I don’t see that happening right now.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day hits theaters on July 31st.
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