Spider-Man: Brand New Day just delivered the biggest domestic opening weekend in box office history, pulling in $360 million and knocking Avengers: Endgame off the top spot. But for producer Amy Pascal, the record is not the most interesting part of the conversation. The woman who’s steered Peter Parker’s story since 2002 is opening up about why Brand New Day didn’t try to out-muscle No Way Home, choosing to shrink the stakes instead of raising them, and what that decision means for where the character goes from here.

So how does a franchise follow three Spider-Man movies, each one bigger than the last, without just doing it again?

Amy Pascal explains the smaller swing behind Spider-Man’s biggest weekend

The question has been hanging over Brand New Day since the moment No Way Home‘s ending erased Peter Parker from existence as everyone knew him: after three films that each raised the stakes higher than the last— where do you even go next? Pascal did not reach for the usual studio answer about scale.

“We knew we couldn’t go bigger than three Spider-Mans, so we had to go deeper with Peter Parker,” Pascal said in her interview with Deadline.

That focus came from producer Kevin Feige and producing partner Rachel O’Connor staying locked on Peter’s story instead of the threat level around him. Director Destin Daniel Cretton pushed it further. He pitched a teenage villain instead of another monster, and made the case that the villain should carry the same problem as Peter: that same feeling of being cut off from everyone else.

The numbers back her up. Spider-Man: Brand New Day opened at $360 million domestically, and that is the biggest opening weekend in box office history. Avengers: Endgame held that record until this weekend. Pascal was running Columbia when the original Spider-Man became the first movie to cross $100 million in a single weekend, and she has watched the franchise beat its own record three times since. Superhero fatigue comes up in nearly every conversation like this one, and she still isn’t buying it.

“I don’t think any of that is ever a real thing. If you make a good movie that people can relate to, I think they relate to it and they want to see it.”, Pascal told Deadline.

With the new Spider-Man movie landing at the sweet spot, Amy Pascal already has something in mind for the friendly neighbourhood superhero.

What Amy Pascal has planned for Spider-Man’s next chapter?

With the Spider-Man franchise having gone from introducing Tom Holland as Spider-Man to ensuring everyone in his world forgets him, and then roping him in the bigger play alongside other Avengers, the stakes are high for Amy Pascal. While she is keeping her cards close, one thing Pascal was comfortable with slipping in was the involvement of Destin Daniel Cretton.

“If we have our way, he certainly will be.”, Pascal told Deadline, on whether Cretton comes back for the next one.

It is the closest thing to a promise she has offered, and it tracks with how she says Marvel actually operates: one movie at a time, not a plan mapped out years in advance. Tom Holland seems game to return as well, though nothing’s signed.

Going deeper instead of bigger is what carried Brand New Day to a record weekend, and it’s the same instinct steering whatever Sony builds next. With great power comes, apparently, a great box office opening, and Pascal is n in a hurry to promise more than one movie at a time.

Do you want to see Destin Daniel Cretton back for another Spider-Man movie? Let us know in the comments.