How Spiderman Took Over Pakistan

The story of how Spiderman: Brand New Day found a home in Pakistani cinemas

Data window: Fri Jul 31 to Sun Aug 2, 2026 · 872 showtimes · 16 cinemas · 6 chains · derooj.com
01 · The takeover

Only 105 shows in the entire country were not Spider-Man

Of 872 showtimes across Pakistan last weekend, 767 belonged to Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Every active cinema was showing it. Every chain. All three cities.

88%
of all cinema showtimes in Pakistan last weekend were Spider-Man, 767 of 872
767
Spider-Man shows, Fri to Sun
15 / 15
active cinemas showed it*
6 / 6
chains on board
~5 min
average gap between one Spidey show starting and the next, nationwide
02 · Screen share

The most lopsided weekend we've ever measured

Share of all national showtimes. Second place was not close. The Odyssey, the previous week's #1, held 4.5%.

Share of national showtimes, Jul 31 to Aug 2

All 872 tracked showtimes · bar length = show count
SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY
767 · 88%
THE ODYSSEY
39 · 4.5%
EVIL DEAD BURN
18 · 2.1%
CARRY ON JATTA 4 · Punjabi
16 · 1.8%
TOY STORY 5
11 · 1.3%
MINIONS & MONSTERS
5 · 0.6%
OBSESSION
5 · 0.6%
Everything else (4 films)
11 · 1.3%
03 · The displacement

What happened to The Odyssey?

A week earlier, Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey had been Pakistan's most-screened film, running 19 shows a day in Lahore alone. Over the weekend it fell to about 7 a day there, and 39 nationwide across three days, as cinemas cleared screens for Spider-Man's contracted opening. Screens are zero-sum: every one of those 767 Spidey slots came from somewhere.

19 → 7
The Odyssey's Lahore shows per day, the previous week vs the weekend (down 63%)
39
Odyssey shows nationwide all weekend. Spider-Man ran that many by lunchtime
20 : 1
Spider-Man-to-Odyssey showtime ratio
10 → 15
Odyssey's daily count recovered Fri to Sun as cinemas tested whether its audience was still there
04 · The city derby

Karachi out-Spideyed Lahore with half the cinemas

Karachi ran 366 Spider-Man shows to Lahore's 325, from 4 active cinemas against Lahore's 8. Per cinema, Karachi was the Spider-Man capital of Pakistan, and in Karachi and Islamabad, Spidey was over 95% of everything showing.

Karachi 🏆

  • All shows: 383 → Spidey share 95.6%
  • Active cinemas: 4~30 shows/cinema/day
  • Fri 117 · Sat 135 · Sun 114

Lahore

  • All shows: 410 → Spidey share 79.3%
  • Active cinemas: 8 → ~13.5 shows/cinema/day
  • Fri 106 · Sat 115 · Sun 104

Islamabad

  • All shows: 79 → Spidey share 96.2%
  • Active cinemas: 3 → ~8.4 shows/cinema/day
  • Fri 22 · Sat 27 · Sun 27

Every show in Pakistan, by city and day

Spider-Man / all showtimes
City Fri Jul 31 Sat Aug 1 Sun Aug 2 Weekend
Lahore 106 / 128 115 / 147 104 / 135 325 / 410
Karachi 117 / 121 135 / 140 114 / 122 366 / 383
Islamabad 22 / 23 27 / 28 27 / 28 76 / 79
Pakistan 245 / 272 277 / 315 245 / 285 767 / 872
05 · The Spidey clock

Peak hour was 8 PM. Then Karachi kept going until dawn.

Every Spider-Man showtime by start hour, ordered as a cinema day (10 AM through the night). The 8 PM slot was the national peak. Then look right of midnight: 107 shows started between 12 AM and 7 AM, almost all in Karachi. Overnight screenings (2 AM, 3:15 AM, even a 4:30 AM and a 6 AM show) made up 28% of Karachi's entire Spider-Man schedule.

Spider-Man showtimes by start hour (all cities, Fri to Sun)

n = 767 · purple bars = the overnight run (midnight to 6 AM)
10a11a12p1p2p3p4p5p6p7p8p9p10p11p12a1a2a3a4a5a6a
Daytime & evening 8 PM peak Overnight (12 to 6 AM)
107
shows started between midnight and 7 AM
28%
of Karachi's Spidey schedule ran overnight (102 of 366 shows, 12 to 7 AM)
37%
of shows were matinees (before 5 PM), plenty of family window
06 · The cinema leaderboard

Five cinemas showed nothing else at all

Nueplex Askari IV alone ran 199 Spider-Man shows, 95% of its entire weekend slate. And five cinemas across the three cities had a slate that was 100% Spider-Man.

Top cinemas by Spider-Man showtimes (Fri to Sun)

Bar = Spidey shows · right column = Spidey's share of that cinema's own slate
Nueplex Askari IV · KHI
199 · 95%
Universal Emporium · LHR
129 · 78%
Nueplex DHA · KHI
88 · 93%
Cinepax Packages Mall · LHR
68 · 76%
Cue Cinemas · LHR
57 · 92%
Cinepax Ocean Mall · KHI
55 · 100%
Cinepax Jinnah Park · ISB
45 · 94%

Chain commitment: Spider-Man's share of each chain's slate

Cinegold's entire national schedule, every city, was Spider-Man
Cinegold
100%
Nueplex
94%
CUE
92%
Cinepax
87%
Universal
78%
Cinestar
73%
07 · How Pakistan watched

Mostly in 2D, with a premium-lounge quarter deck

31 shows were 3D, and 112 ran in premium lounges (Gold, Platinum, Red, Diamond, Ultra). About 1 in 7 Spider-Man screenings was a recliner-class experience.

96%
of Spidey shows were standard 2D (736)
31
3D screenings
112
premium-lounge shows across 5 tiers (Gold 34 · Diamond 26 · Ultra 22 · Red 21 · Platinum 9)
08 · Will it hold?

767 shows. Check back next Friday.

🕸 The Spider-Man screen tracker

Opening weekends are hype; weeks 2 to 4 are word of mouth. Derooj records Pakistan's screening schedule every day, so this number updates every Friday. It is the first week-over-week screen tracking ever published for Pakistani cinema. Will The Odyssey claw screens back? Does the overnight Karachi run survive? Watch this space.

Week 1
767
Week 2
?
Week 3
?
Week 4
?
Week 5
?
09 · How we count

Method note

What this measures: Derooj tracks every published showtime at 16 cinemas across 6 chains in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad, refreshed daily. Counts are screen allocation, meaning how much space cinemas give a film, not tickets sold. Screen allocation is the standard demand proxy in markets without official box-office reporting. Window: Friday Jul 31 to Sunday Aug 2, 2026. Schedules were pulled on the evening of Jul 31, so the counts are what cinemas had published for the weekend.

Notes: One tracked cinema (Cinepax Lake City, Lahore) published no listings for any film in this window and is excluded from per-cinema figures. Duplicate title listings are merged. The Odyssey figure of 19 Lahore shows a day the previous week comes from Derooj's records of Jul 24. No chain published ticket prices in this window, so pricing is not covered. Live showtimes: derooj.com/movies/spider-man-brand-new-day.