Jon Bernthal can do no wrong. A Marvel favorite for over a decade, the veteran actor is renowned for his performance as The Punisher in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and after a hiatus from playing the role (that had absolutely nothing to do with him), he brought Frank Castle back to screens in the first season of Daredevil: Born Again in 2025 - an apt return considering he got his start on the original Daredevil series on Netflix back in 2016. But it was this year, 2026, that truly saw The Punisher enjoy greater levels of success than ever before.
Bernthal headlined the character's Disney Plus Special Presentation The Punisher: One Last Kill, receiving critical acclaim for his nuanced performance. But the TV-MA return was succeeded by an unexpected pivot into the more light-hearted territory of the MCU with Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which turned out to be a resounding success. And, in being so, both the movie and Bernthal have made Marvel, MCU, and box office history.
Jon Bernthal becomes first Marvel Netflix star to co-headline a $2 billion MCU movie
My how far we have come. Frank Castle is officially in a rare class of the $2 billion club. Yep, Spider-Man: Brand New Day has continued its record-breaking success over a month after its arrival in movie theaters, crossing the $2.3 billion mark ahead of its fifth weekend at the box office. That places it fourth on the highest-grossing movies of all time list, allowing it to surpass James Cameron's game-changing Titanic. It's coming for Cameron's Avatar: The Way Of Water next, likely securing a third all-time spot (just behind fellow Marvel Studios film Avengers: Endgame and Cameron's original Avatar).
This is also a monumental success for Bernthal's Punisher, as it makes Frank Castle the first star of the Marvel Netflix franchise to star in a $2 billion MCU film - not bad for a TV-MA character in a corner of the shared universe that originally wasn't considered mainstream (or, at one point in time, even canon). Bernthal's hard-hitting anti-hero was first introduced in Daredevil season 2, when he became something of an antagonist for the Devil of Hell's Kitchen (before the two became frenemies instead, even working together to take down The Hand). He then went on to lead his own spinoff, The Punisher, which ran for two seasons before the end of the Marvel Netflix Universe.
When Marvel Studios officially got the streaming rights to the Netflix characters back, they had an idea to reboot them with some of the same actors - much to the fans' dislike. A change of heart midway through production of Daredevil: Born Again forced them to do rewrites, ultimately bringing Bernthal back, too - as the actor originally declined to return as a new version of Frank because he didn't think the fans would like what they were doing. And, with that, after a decade, the MCU finally acknowledged the events of the Netflix shows (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and The Punisher) as being canon to the wider, family-friendly MCU - allowing them to crossover with the more mainstream heroes for the first time ever.
This officially came into effect in Christmas 2021 when the finale of Disney Plus series Hawkeye saw the return of Vincent D'Onofrio's Wilson Fisk (a.k.a. the Kingpin) and Spider-Man: No Way Home saw Daredevil's Charlie Cox return to the role of Matt Murdock (a.k.a. Daredevil himself) - the latter of which made $1.9 million at the box office and was, until Brand New Day, the only MCU movie to feature a Marvel Netflix star. As that was a cameo appearance, however, Bernthal's supporting role as The Punisher in the sequel was considered that much more of a step forward. Maybe we'll finally see Daredevil and Spider-Man team up in the next one?
No matter what way you look at it, this is a massive deal for Spider-Man: Brand New Day. We all knew that Spidey would swing his way to box office success given how universally beloved he is as a superhero, but that doesn't take anything away from the work that both Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios have put into their partnership to ensure that this specific version of Spider-Man - the Tom Holland iteration - is the success story that it is. Remember, 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming (which co-starred Holland, Marvel's own Robert Downey Jr. and Batman legend Michael Keaton) made $880 million - incredible in its own right but over $1 billion less than where we're at now. We all love Spider-Man, but we might just love the MCU version even more.
We're just happy to see Bernthal's Punisher achieve such incredible success. His performance has received critical acclaim since his 2016 debut and, even now, he continues to prove just how valuable his version of Frank Castle is to the wider MCU - he just has a much bigger stage to do that on.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in theaters now.
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