Web of billions: how Spider-Man became the most heroic franchise in Hollywood

Tom Holland’s fourth outing as Peter Parker broke box office records but how did the web-slinger avoid growing superhero fatigue? A year ago, the superhero-industrial complex looked like it was on the wane. All three of Marvel’s big movies for 2025 underperformed to some degree or another, outgrossed by DC’s newest reboot of Superman – which itself made less than any number of previous-regime DC movies, and was followed up by this summer’s Supergirl, a costly bomb. It looked as if the age of…