So Thursday night was a big deal at the box office.

I went to a late afternoon showing of the latest Marvel, “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” — not the first nor the last of the evening, with screenings starting @noon in my corner of the suburban south. Maybe a dozen people were there. But when I got out, the parking lot was packed.

That mimicked a lot of people’s experience of Thursday, as late evening showings were packed.

Marvel cravings played a part in the turnout, and five years since the last “Spider-Man” added up to pent-up demand, as Thursday delivered a whopping $72 million. Deadline.com is projecting Thursday/Friday as a possible new Marvel record — $160 million, maybe?

The Marvel record is $157, tallied by pre-Trumpflation “Avengers: Endgame” back in 2019.

Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” is looking at a $52 million weekend, its THIRD in release. That would win most any weekend of the year. But with “Brand New Day” looking to break the “Endgame” opening weekend record ($357 million), that’s not all that and a bag of popcorn.

But a little perspectie — “Brad New Day” sold somewhere south of seven million tickets Thursday night, with most theaters asking north of $10 even for matinees.

An observation — no, fans aren’t “over” comic book movies. But there aren’t as many of them as there used to be.

Reviews for the fourthTom Holland outing as the webslinger aren’t all that. He’s ageing out of the character, the pop and sizzle have gone out of his gee whizzes and the weight of the world isn’t the biggest selling point. An interesting but hardly show-stopper villain and lots of Marvel movie fan-service — “Avengers the Comeback” is coming, “The Punisher with Jon Bernthal, Too” and “X-Men: The Reboot” is on the horizon — drives the loses-track-of-the-title-character “plot.” I found it joyless and soulless, not something you want in a Spider-Man movie.

“Moana” is destined to drop to third, “Toy Story 5” and “Minions & Monsters” will take fourth and fifth.

“Hadestown” will drop out of the top five, but Bleecker Street decided to extend it beyond the five day run they’d announced. So we’ll see how deep in the top ten it tallies.

Will “Obsession” finally exit the top ten?

Check back here as I will be updating this box office race as the weekend progreess.