LOS ANGELES — “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” crossed $900 million at the domestic box office Friday, becoming only the second film in cinema history to reach that milestone and positioning the Sony and Marvel blockbuster to overtake “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” as the highest-grossing domestic release of all time in the coming days.

The Tom Holland-led film reached the $900 million threshold in just 36 days, according to Deadline, shattering the previous record for fastest film to hit that mark, which had been set by “The Force Awakens” in 50 days following its 2015 release. The only prior film to ever cross $900 million domestically, “The Force Awakens” finished its theatrical run with $936.6 million, a figure that has stood as the unadjusted all-time North American box office record for more than a decade.

Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, “Brand New Day” was on track to spend its sixth consecutive weekend atop the domestic box office over the four-day Labor Day holiday period, with projections estimating the film would earn roughly $22 million over the extended weekend. According to Deadline’s estimates, that would push the film’s cumulative domestic total to approximately $921 million by the close of business Monday, leaving it just $15 million to $16 million short of overtaking “The Force Awakens’” all-time record.

The film’s remarkable staying power has come during what is typically a quieter stretch of the summer movie calendar. New wide releases including “By Any Means” and A24’s “Onslaught” were not expected to seriously challenge “Brand New Day’s” hold on the top spot at the box office, according to industry tracking.

Tom Holland could occupy both of the top two positions at the domestic box office this Labor Day weekend. Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” which also stars Holland, was projected to finish in second place with approximately $16.4 million over the extended weekend, according to reporting on the weekend’s box office estimates. The Universal epic, now in its eighth weekend in theaters, was expected to reach roughly $588.1 million domestically by Monday.

“Brand New Day’s” success has extended well beyond North America. The film has earned more than $2.33 billion worldwide, placing it third on the all-time global box office chart, trailing only James Cameron’s “Avatar” and Marvel’s “Avengers: Endgame.” The film recently surpassed “Avatar: The Way of Water’s” lifetime global total of roughly $2.32 billion to claim that third-place position outright.

According to Deadline, industry analysts have pointed to significant repeat viewership as a central driver behind the film’s extraordinary staying power at the box office, noting that audiences have been returning to theaters to see the film multiple times, a pattern that helps explain why the movie has maintained such unusually strong week-over-week grosses relative to typical blockbuster releases.

The film’s opening weekend alone set its own significant record, earning $360.1 million from 4,487 North American theaters, a figure that broke the previous domestic opening-weekend record of $357.1 million held by “Avengers: Endgame” since 2019. “Brand New Day” also became the second-fastest film in history to reach $1 billion at the global box office, accomplishing that feat in just six days following its release.

Forbes contributor Tim Lammers had flagged the approaching $900 million milestone as imminent as of Aug. 31, at which point the film had reached $891.8 million in domestic earnings through its 31st day of release, following its fourth consecutive weekend atop the domestic chart at that time. Box Office Watch’s tracking data placed the film at $891.5 million after 31 days, positioning it as on pace to become the fastest film in history to reach the $900 million domestic threshold, a projection that ultimately proved accurate when the film crossed the mark on Friday.

Industry watchers have noted that “Brand New Day” is unlikely to become the first film in history to reach $1 billion at the domestic box office alone, a milestone no film has yet achieved. However, the film remains firmly on pace to catch and surpass “The Force Awakens’” all-time domestic record within the coming days or weeks, according to multiple box office trackers.

The film’s continued dominance is expected to hold at least through the following two weeks, with “Brand New Day” not projected to lose its grip on the top box office spot until the horror franchise installment “Resident Evil” opens later this month, according to reporting from Central Jersey citing industry projections.

Beyond its box office performance, “Brand New Day’s” extended theatrical run has also contributed significantly to the broader summer 2026 box office season. According to Deadline, the film’s continued strength through Labor Day weekend has helped push the overall summer domestic box office toward a potential all-time record total of $4.76 billion, reflecting the outsized role the Spider-Man sequel has played in propping up theatrical attendance throughout what industry analysts had otherwise expected to be a comparatively subdued summer season for new releases.

“Brand New Day” stars Holland alongside Zendaya and Sadie Sink, continuing the Spider-Man film franchise’s recent run under Sony and Marvel Studios’ joint production arrangement. The film’s box office trajectory throughout the summer has consistently outpaced the historical release-window pace set by “The Force Awakens” a decade earlier, a comparison box office analysts have closely tracked given the two films’ shared status as the only movies in cinema history to reach the $900 million domestic threshold.

With Labor Day weekend’s final box office totals still being finalized, the precise timing of when “Brand New Day” will officially surpass “The Force Awakens” to claim the all-time domestic box office record remains uncertain, though multiple industry trackers now describe the outcome as effectively inevitable barring a dramatic and unexpected collapse in the film’s remaining theatrical run. For Sony and Marvel Studios, the milestone would mark a significant validation of the studios’ continued investment in the Spider-Man franchise, which has now produced what is on track to become the highest-grossing film ever released at the North American box office, unadjusted for inflation, more than a decade after “The Force Awakens” first set that benchmark in December 2015.

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Consumers across the country are increasingly encountering artificial intelligence-generated images of food on restaurant menus and marketing materials, and many say the results are unappetizing, misleading and sparking a wave of online backlash against the growing trend.

The controversy gained fresh attention after Jill Sennett, a 37-year-old nurse in Denver, shared AI-generated menu images from a Jamaican barbecue pop-up restaurant with her 26,000 followers on X, showing meats that appeared to resemble leather belts covered in tiny beetles. The post was reshared by more than 500 people, many of whom expressed similar disgust at the images.

Sennett said the trend feels like a troubling shift in how restaurants present food to customers.

“Such an essential human experience,” Sennett said of eating, adding that she views the shift toward AI-generated food imagery as “a bad cultural thing that restaurants are converting to these horrific, uncanny food images that are unappetizing.”

Despite her reaction to the images, Sennett said she still ordered chicken and macaroni and cheese from the restaurant, noting it was one of her only lunch options at the time and that she had eaten there previously.

The manager of Jamaican Jerk and Barbecue Restaurant, the Denver establishment that hosted the pop-up at Sennett’s hospital, confirmed he had used ChatGPT to generate the menu images rather than paying a graphic designer, a service he does use for the restaurant’s permanent, bricks-and-mortar location.

“We decided we would design something that was eye-catching,” the manager said, declining to give his name for publication. “Restaurant people are trying to be cost-effective.”

According to a 2026 report from the National Restaurant Association, 26% of restaurant operators now use AI in some capacity to assist with marketing, inventory management, employee scheduling, menu optimization or order taking, reflecting the technology’s growing footprint across the industry even as consumer reactions to specific applications, particularly AI-generated food imagery, have proven mixed at best.

Backlash to the trend has been particularly sharp in the San Francisco Bay Area, a hub for AI development. When San Francisco cafe Grind & Unwind put up signage depicting menu items that locals quickly identified as AI-generated, vandals graffitied the storefront with a message cafe owner Lyndsey Lozano interpreted as reading “seriously.” A Reddit post titled “Yum, slop” drew commenters comparing the AI-generated bread images to textures resembling reptile skin and a loofah.

Lozano told SFGate in July that the reaction was “not what we were expecting,” noting the signage had only been intended as a temporary measure. She and her husband subsequently removed the AI-generated signage and spent an estimated $700 painting over the resulting graffiti, according to SFGate.

Sennett said she finds some amusement in AI’s continued struggles to convincingly render food.

“It can do uncanny videos of celebrities, but it can’t depict a hamburger,” Sennett said. “I hope it stays that way, honestly, and we can shame restaurants into stopping.”

Industry professionals say the technology’s growing use reflects genuine cost pressures facing restaurants, even as its application to customer-facing imagery specifically remains contentious. Hunter Lewis, editor in chief of Food and Wine magazine, said he has observed restaurants increasingly automating parts of their back-end operations, but cautioned that AI’s use should generally remain invisible to diners.

“The American dining public is smart,” Lewis said. “They know what they want, and they know what is real.”

Some restaurants have leaned into rejecting the technology entirely as a marketing strategy of its own. When Wyoming restaurant Chugwater Soda Fountain publicly pledged, on a piece of cardboard, that it would never use AI and would instead continue posting hand-drawn images of its burgers, the Instagram post drew more than 200,000 likes, with some commenters celebrating the homespun approach while others noted the irony of posting the pledge on an AI-powered social media platform.

Jamie Soja, a professional photographer in the Bay Area who has shot images for restaurant marketing and food-delivery services, said AI-generated images most often fail to accurately capture a dish’s texture.

“The color and texture and the ingredients look kind of off in the way that they’re arranged,” Soja said, adding that lighting in AI-generated food images frequently appears unnatural as well.

Major technology platforms are increasingly embedding AI tools directly into their systems, further complicating the debate. Food-delivery app DoorDash offers AI photo tools designed “to improve the presentation of an existing image of a dish,” adjusting lighting, color or background, the company said in a statement. DoorDash said its policies prohibit restaurants from creating or altering misleading images of menu items, and that the company reviews menu images for compliance, automatically applying an “AI-enhanced” label to images edited using its tool. Even so, distinguishing AI-generated images from simply heavily edited photography can prove difficult even for trained professionals like Soja.

Researchers have begun studying how AI-generated food imagery affects consumer perception and appetite. In a 2024 study, Charles Spence, a University of Oxford professor of experimental psychology, found that consumers generally preferred AI-generated food images when they did not know the images had been created by a machine, but rated the same images as less appealing once that fact was disclosed to them. Spence’s research also found that AI tools tend to alter food images in predictable ways, often adding visual cues of fat, such as butter on mashed potatoes, when prompted to make an image appear more appealing, raising concerns that such imagery could subtly nudge both diners and chefs toward larger portions with higher fat content over time.

The backlash has extended even to professionals who work with AI regularly. Brandon Hill, chief executive of a design and marketing agency in San Francisco, said he was sufficiently put off by AI-generated menu images at a downtown cafe that he photographed and shared them with his more than 86,000 followers on X, noting that even in a city known for AI development, the resulting images “don’t look all that appetizing.” Hill said the images also left him “skeptical of what the actual meals will look like.”

Not every restaurant owner has faced the same backlash. Nila Norero Salvatore, owner of Bella Cafe, the San Francisco cafe referenced in Hill’s post, said she has not personally received complaints about the ChatGPT-designed signage advertising her breakfast menu. Norero Salvatore, 65, described herself and her husband as “old-fashioned,” adding that experimenting with AI has felt “fun” and “new for us.” She said she also uses ChatGPT to help write employee reference letters and draft the cafe’s staff handbook.

Beyond the cost savings on graphic design, Norero Salvatore said she genuinely likes how the AI-generated images look.

“I think it’s a great way of advertising our products, even though sometimes people say AI isn’t effective or it’s not natural,” she said.

As restaurants continue navigating the still-developing norms around AI-generated imagery in customer-facing marketing, the sharply divided reactions from diners, industry professionals and restaurant owners alike suggest the debate over the technology’s place on menus is likely to persist even as more establishments experiment with the cost-saving tools.

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Google users across the United States began reporting widespread access problems Sunday, with complaints spanning multiple services including Google Search, YouTube, Google Play and account login pages, according to outage-tracking reports.

According to monitoring data compiled Sunday, 42% of reported problems involved content failing to load, 29% involved difficulties logging into accounts, and 18% involved general website access issues, indicating that the disruption is affecting users across a range of different Google products rather than being confined to a single feature or service.

Independent status-tracking service StatusGator characterized Google Workspace, the company’s suite of productivity tools including Gmail, Google Docs and Google Drive, as operational as of its most recent check Sunday morning, while still logging more than 100 user-submitted outage reports across various Workspace-related services over the preceding 24-hour period. Separate checks of Google Chrome and Google Docs specifically similarly showed the services as officially operational despite continued user complaints trickling in throughout the day.

Google, owned by parent company Alphabet, provides a wide range of interconnected services used by billions of people worldwide, including its core search engine, Gmail email service, YouTube video hosting platform, Google Maps navigation, the Chrome web browser, the Android mobile operating system, the Google Play digital distribution platform, Google Drive cloud storage, and Google Ads, the company’s advertising platform for businesses. Given that scale and the degree of interconnection between these services, many of which rely on shared underlying authentication and infrastructure systems, disruptions affecting one part of Google’s ecosystem can frequently ripple outward to affect several other products simultaneously.

Sunday’s reported issues add to a documented history of periodic Google outages, some brief and isolated to specific services, others considerably more widespread. In June 2025, a significant Google Cloud Platform outage disrupted services across the internet, affecting not only Google’s own products such as Google Meet, but also a range of other major platforms, including Cloudflare, OpenAI, Twitch, Discord, Nintendo and Spotify, all of which rely on Google’s cloud infrastructure to varying degrees. That incident, which Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian later addressed directly, was fully resolved within roughly a day, with Google apologizing for what it described in a subsequent blog post as “a failure on our part,” even while noting that the immediate trigger for the outage stemmed from a third-party vendor issue.

Other historical Google outages have centered more specifically on the company’s authentication systems, which govern user sign-ins across its various products. In one earlier widespread incident, an authentication-related bug caused disruptions across Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google Play and Chrome Sync simultaneously, with some users reporting that their Chrome browsers would crash entirely when attempting to load Gmail, a symptom that pointed directly to the underlying authentication issue as the root cause.

Google Calendar specifically has also experienced its own periodic standalone outages over the years, including one notable incident that began around 8:15 a.m. Pacific time and left the service largely inaccessible for a significant number of users before being fully restored later that morning, a disruption the company acknowledged shortly after it began.

Given Google’s central role in global internet infrastructure, outages affecting the company’s services tend to generate immediate and widespread public attention, with affected users frequently turning to social media platforms to check whether problems they are experiencing reflect a broader outage or are instead isolated to their own device, browser or internet connection. Outage-tracking platforms such as Downdetector and StatusGator compile crowdsourced reports from users experiencing difficulties, comparing the volume of incoming complaints against typical background activity levels to help determine whether a genuine, widespread service disruption is underway.

As of Sunday, Google had not issued a detailed public statement specifically addressing the reported access issues affecting Search, YouTube, Google Play and account login pages, consistent with the company’s general practice of acknowledging major outages formally only once report volumes climb well beyond routine background levels, and often providing only limited technical detail about the underlying cause even after an incident has been resolved.

For users experiencing difficulty accessing Google services, standard troubleshooting steps typically recommended by technology support resources include verifying an active and stable internet connection, restarting the affected application or clearing the browser’s cache and cookies, checking for and installing any pending software or app updates, and confirming whether the issue is isolated to a single Google product or affecting multiple services simultaneously, which can help determine whether the underlying cause is more likely tied to a broader account authentication problem rather than an issue specific to an individual app.

Given the scale of Google’s global user base, even relatively contained or short-lived disruptions can generate outsized attention and disruption for businesses and individuals who rely heavily on the company’s services for everyday tasks, including email communication, document collaboration, video hosting, mobile app distribution and general web search. That reliance has made Google outages, historically infrequent relative to the scale of the company’s operations, a recurring source of significant public interest whenever they do occur, given how many other digital services and daily routines depend on Google’s infrastructure functioning normally.

As of Sunday, it remained unclear how long the reported access issues would persist or what specific technical cause might be responsible for the disruption affecting login, content loading and general website access across multiple Google products. Affected users were advised to continue monitoring both independent outage-tracking services and Google’s own official status and support channels for updates, as the company worked, without formal public acknowledgment as of the time of this report, to address the underlying issues contributing to Sunday’s reported disruptions.

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NEW YORK — American teenager Iva Jovic outlasted her close friend Alexandra Eala of the Philippines in a grueling three-hour, three-minute battle Saturday night at Arthur Ashe Stadium, winning 7-5, 3-6, 7-5 to reach the fourth round of the U.S. Open for the first time in her young career.

The 14th-seeded Jovic, 18, extended her perfect head-to-head record over Eala to 3-0 with the victory, having previously defeated the 17th-seeded Filipina at Roland Garros and at the HSBC Championships at Queen’s Club earlier this year. The win sends Jovic into a fourth-round matchup against fourth seed and 2023 champion Coco Gauff, who defeated Cristina Bucsa, 6-3, 6-4, earlier in the tournament.

Both Eala, 21, and Jovic had reached the third round through relatively comfortable straight-set victories, with Eala defeating Mary Stoiana, 6-1, 6-2, and Oleksandra Oliynykova, 6-1, 6-4, while Jovic advanced past Magdalena Frech, 7-5, 6-3, and Francesca Jones, 6-4, 6-4. Saturday’s meeting, by contrast, developed into one of the most intense and closely fought matches of the entire tournament.

Jovic struck first, capitalizing on two double faults from Eala to earn the match’s first break of serve and take an early 2-1 lead in the opening set. Eala immediately threatened to break back, earning three break points on Jovic’s serve in the fourth game, but the American held her nerve, winning five consecutive points to fend off the threat and extend her lead to 3-1. Jovic continued applying pressure, breaking again in the fifth game to stretch her advantage to 4-1 before Eala finally halted the run, breaking back in the sixth game and holding in the seventh to cut the deficit to 4-3. Jovic ultimately closed out the opening set 7-5.

Eala responded strongly in the second set, taking it 6-3 to force a decisive third set. Eala broke Jovic’s serve in the opening game of the final set and consolidated the advantage for an early 2-0 lead. Jovic broke back two games later, and from that point the match turned into an extended battle of superb shot-making, stellar defense and long, physically demanding rallies, with momentum shifting repeatedly in front of a crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium that appeared largely supportive of Eala for much of the contest, before seeming to back both players equally by the match’s conclusion.

After a Jovic double fault gave back an earlier break in the decisive set, Eala held serve at love to take a commanding 4-2 lead, putting her within reach of the fourth round. That lead would not hold. Jovic won the next game after multiple deuces, then leveled the match with a pinpoint winner off Eala’s serve. In the final game, on Jovic’s second match point, Eala hit a forehand into the net, sending Jovic collapsing to the ground in visible relief and exhaustion before the two players shared a warm embrace at the net.

Statistically, the match reflected its grueling nature. Jovic struck 44 winners against 27 unforced errors, while Eala recorded 34 winners against 33 unforced errors. Jovic won 12 of 15 points at the net, while Eala won 16 of her 25 net points. Both players returned serve exceptionally well throughout the match, though Jovic proved slightly more effective in the most critical moments, converting nine of 17 break-point opportunities compared with Eala’s eight conversions out of 20 chances.

Speaking after the match, Jovic described the physical and emotional toll the contest took on her over its three-hour duration.

“It took losing my earrings, falling literally flat out on the floor, cuts on my knees, mental breakdowns,” Jovic said. “It took literally everything.”

Jovic elaborated further on the emotional intensity of playing such a high-stakes match in the tournament’s largest venue.

“Playing on Arthur Ashe, in front of that atmosphere, I felt like I was shaking throughout the entire match,” Jovic said. “I lost my earrings midway through. I got them back. There was a time I was literally splat on the floor … I have cuts on my knees. I had to give absolutely everything to get through that.”

Eala, despite the heartbreaking defeat, offered a graceful exit from the court, congratulating Jovic with a hug, smiling and waving to the crowd as she left Arthur Ashe Stadium. According to reporting from the Philippine outlet Inquirer, Eala’s composure held until she reached the tunnel leading away from the court, where she began to hold back tears over how close she had come to reaching the fourth round.

Saturday’s match came just 10 days after Jovic and Eala had shared laughs together at Arthur Ashe Stadium during an exhibition event, underscoring the genuine friendship between the two rising stars even amid their intensifying on-court rivalry.

The victory continues a breakout 2026 season for Jovic, who reached the quarterfinals of the Australian Open earlier this year before falling to top seed Aryna Sabalenka, advanced to the third round at the French Open before losing to Naomi Osaka, and reached the fourth round at Wimbledon, where she faced Jessica Pegula. With Saturday’s win, Jovic has now reached her third Grand Slam round of 16 appearance of the season, becoming the youngest American player to accomplish that feat since Venus Williams in 1998.

For Eala, the loss ends a run that had captured significant attention back home in the Philippines, where her deep push into the tournament had reportedly complicated family wedding plans in Seattle for supporters following her progress closely throughout the week. Despite the disappointing finish, Eala’s run to the third round, including her straight-set victories over Stoiana and Oliynykova, represented a notable tournament for the 21-year-old as she continues building her career on the WTA Tour.

With Jovic now advancing to face Gauff in an all-American fourth-round showdown, the young American’s continued rise through the sport’s biggest stages sets up another high-profile matchup at her home Grand Slam, as she looks to build further on what has already become the most successful season of her young professional career.

Sensex gained 363 points to close at 76,515 while Nifty 50 rose over 24 points to end the session below 23,898 on Friday. Broader markets closed mixed, with Nifty Midcap 100 slipping into the red, while Nifty Smallcap 100 closed in the green.

Here are major factors that drive market mood starting Monday

Oil gains again – Crude oil prices gained about 8% this week after US and Iran exchanged strikes after a month, reigniting fears of a supply crunch as the Strait of Hormuz remains shut for oil transit.

Citi raised its average Brent crude price forecast for the third quarter to $86 a barrel from $80, citing a longer-than-expected reopening timeline for the Strait of Hormuz.

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Further, ANZ analysts also lifted their short-term Brent crude forecast to $95 a barrel, warning that prices could face further upside if the conflict in the Middle East intensifies.
Rising bond yields – A bond-market selloff of a scale not seen in decades is adding to concerns for Indian investors. Yields across major economies have risen to multi-year highs this week as markets contend with three key pressures: oil-driven inflation, tighter monetary policy and worsening fiscal conditions.The surge in oil prices, along with a sharper rise in fuel costs, has pushed inflation and government borrowing costs higher globally. This has also heightened concerns that economic growth could weaken without some relief.

Rising bond yields also make US fixed-income assets more attractive by offering higher returns with relatively low risk. This can reduce the relative appeal of Indian equities, particularly for foreign investors, and encourage global capital to shift towards US fixed-income investments.

US jobs report ups rate hike bets – A stronger-than-expected US jobs report has put a September interest-rate hike firmly back in focus, leaving Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh facing a difficult decision as President Donald Trump steps up calls for lower borrowing costs.

US employers added 162,000 jobs in August, nearly three times economists’ expectations, while the labour force participation rate rose to 61.6%. The increase in participation brought more people into jobs directly, helping keep the unemployment rate at 4.1% even as the pool of available workers expanded.

The report strengthens the case for the Federal Reserve to raise rates at its September 15-16 meeting, particularly after Warsh said last week that he needed confidence that inflation was moving back towards the central bank’s 2% target “clearly and at sufficient speed.” Without that, he said, “we have work to do.”

FII DII activity – Foreign investors are making a decisive return to Indian equities, with FPI inflows crossing $3.2 billion in August. The buying momentum has carried into September, with foreign portfolio investors pouring Rs 2,374 crore into Indian equities in the first four days of the month.

“The tapering of the chip trade and the FPIs turning consistent sellers in the chip stocks in South Korea and Taiwan have played an important role in bringing the FPIs back to India,” V K Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Investments Ltd said.

The resilience of the Indian economy, as indicated by the Q1 FY27 GDP growth rate of 7.8%, and the better-than-expected Q1 earnings numbers and stabilisation of the rupee are other positive factors that have the potential to sustain the positive FPI inflows into India. The massive $127 billion that came to India under the FCNR (B) scheme has strengthened the rupee significantly from the low of 96.96 to the dollar in May to 94.49 on 4th September.

What lies ahead of Dalal Street

Nifty’s technical picture provides little evidence of a sustained recovery at this stage. Nifty is comfortably trading below its short and long-term moving averages, while the 20, 50, and 100-day EMAs have started edging lower, indicating increasing bearish pressure, says Sudeep Shah of SBI Securities.

The daily RSI is hovering around 40 and remains below its 9-day average, while the daily ADX has moved above 20 and is rising, suggesting that the prevailing trend is gaining strength. With momentum and trend indicators weakening, the spotlight now shifts to a crucial support zone.

That support zone lies in the 23,750-23,700 region. The zone is important as the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement of the previous upmove from 23,070 to 24,774 is placed around this region. A sustained break below 23700 could intensify the correction towards 23,500, followed by 23,300.

On the upside, the hurdle is placed in the zone of 24,150-24,200 as it is the confluence of 50 and 100-day EMA levels. A sustained move above this range would be required to ease the prevailing bearish bias and bring stability back to the index.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)