A pirated copy of “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” flooded X on Friday morning, spreading to nearly 6 million accounts before the platform pulled it down hours later, marking the second major studio release to leak on the site inside two weeks.
An account posting under the name Fredrick Bryan uploaded the high-quality bootleg at 6:05 a.m. Pacific time. By the time X removed it roughly nine hours later, the clip had reached 5.9 million accounts, drawn more than 143,000 likes and been reshared close to 10,000 times. Several copycat accounts posted their own versions of the film, though most disappeared quickly as enforcement efforts continued. Sony declined to comment on the leak.
The incident echoes what happened to Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” just days earlier, when a similarly high-quality bootleg circulated on X and pulled in 2.1 million views within two and a half hours before the platform took it down and suspended the account behind it. Universal responded at the time with a statement confirming it had launched takedown protocols immediately and intended to pursue every available legal remedy to protect its intellectual property.
Both leaks point to a structural issue tied to X’s own feature set. Since Elon Musk purchased the platform and rebranded it in 2022, X Premium subscribers have been able to post videos running up to four hours, a length that makes it possible to upload entire feature films in a single post rather than clips or excerpts. Studios typically respond to piracy with infringement notices, but the sheer volume of reposts during a major release makes it difficult to stay ahead of every copy.
The leak did nothing to slow “Brand New Day” at the box office. The film opened Friday with an all-time single-day high, pulling in more than $167 million domestically and putting it on pace to challenge the $357 million opening weekend record set by “Avengers: Endgame.” Its Friday total alone topped “Endgame’s” $157.4 million opening day from 2019. Advance previews, including Tuesday early-access screenings, had already generated a record $72 million before the film’s wide release, suggesting audience enthusiasm was strong enough to absorb the piracy hit without denting ticket sales.
