• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, Yesterday

Final results now show “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” has now scored the best ever domestic opening box-office results in history: $360 million, now topping 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame” at $357 million.

Early estimates for the most recent Friday-to-Sunday time period had the latest “Spider-Man” edition at $355 million.

Coupling this with the third weekend of Universal Pictures' “The Odyssey”, which took in another sturdy $51 million -- as well as adding in results from other movies -- means the theatrical domestic weekend has a best ever overall weekend record of $430 million.

Good news for the theatrical movie business? Maybe.

Some movie chains' stock prices -- including Cinemark Holdings, and Imax Corp. -- were up 4% in midday Monday trading to $38.14 and $50.00, respectively.

Imax benefited from offering its exclusive showing from “The Odyssey," which displayed the unique production of the film using only high-quality Imax cameras for its shooting of the movie.

At the same time, the weekend didn’t do much for the biggest U.S. movie theater chain, AMC Entertainment Holdings. After an initial opening small spike, AMC’s stock crept up 1% to $2.86 in mid-day trading.

While audiences were cheering these two movies on -- with high marks from consumer data from Rotten Tomatoes -- analysts continued to worry about the long-term outlook for big, action-adventure fantasy franchise movies going forward.

For example, many believe that “Spider-Man” sits alone in its high standing among audiences and differs from other superhero types of characters, with scripts of very relatable characters.

All this comes as the hard-pressed theatrical business has seen some ups and downs over the past few seasons -- especially with the rise of all things that at-home streaming TV provides.

Still, the business will surely take the good headlines -- and then some.

The pairing of “Brand New Day” and “The Odyssey” may remind moviegoers of the summer of 2023, when “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” gained strong consumer sentiment and ruled movie theater screens.

The difference for this year is that “The Odyssey” leans on new technology -- those high-quality Imax cameras, and the showing of that movie on very large Imax screens, up to 60 feet tall and 80 feet wide.

That is something smaller at-home TV screens -- even the ever larger 70 and 80-inch new smart TV screens -- cannot compete with.

Still, what’s next? Do we need to see new kinds of large 80-foot versions of introspective dramatic independent movies or romantic comedies, or Adam Sandler films?