Sony Bets on Destin Daniel Cretton Without His Next Film

Destin Daniel Cretton signed a three-year overall deal with Sony Pictures on September 22. The pact puts Hisako Films on the lot to develop and produce new movies. It does not cover directing.

That gap is the cost of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which has taken in $2.479 billion worldwide for Sony and Marvel Studios. The film is the highest-grossing domestic release of all time at $945 million. Sony is buying a producing partner and hoping the chair comes later.

The Pact Runs Three Years and Stops at Producing

Cretton, who was born and raised on Maui, will develop films through Hisako with company president Jeyun Munford. Sony Pictures motion picture group president Sanford Panitch put both names in the studio statement. Motion picture group chairman and CEO Tom Rothman added his own.

The contract is an overall deal in the old studio sense. Hisako will work up projects for Sony to produce. Directing those films is a separate negotiation. Sony is eager to get Cretton back for a Brand New Day follow-up, but that job is not written into the three-year paper.

WHAT THE PACT COVERS

• The term: Three years with Sony Pictures.
• The banner: Hisako Films develops and produces with Munford.
• The chair: Directing is excluded from the contract.
• The sequel: Sony wants him back for a Brand New Day follow-up, with no date attached.
• The next shoot: A live-action Naruto at Lionsgate is due to film in early 2027.

Any studio that wants him behind the camera stands behind Lionsgate. The Sony deal lets Hisako keep a producing office on the lot while that manga film is made somewhere else. It is a bet on proximity, not a start date.

Brand New Day Has Taken In $2.479 Billion

Sony moved after a summer that reset its own record book. Brand New Day opened in six markets on July 29 and in North America on July 31. Tom Holland returns as Peter Parker, with Zendaya, Mark Ruffalo and Jon Bernthal in the company. Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal are among the producers.

Box Office Mojo puts the running total at $2.479 billion worldwide, with $945 million of that from the United States and Canada. The domestic opening weekend was $360.1 million, 38.1 percent of the domestic cume, in 4,487 theaters.

THE HAUL THAT CLOSED THE DEAL

The film stayed No. 1 for six straight weekends, from the July 31 frame through the weekend of September 4, before slipping in week seven. It passed 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens to take the all-time domestic crown and ranks third worldwide, behind Avatar and Avengers: Endgame. It is the biggest film Sony has ever released. The Numbers lists a $225 million production budget, which makes the worldwide take about 11 times the spend.

Critics logged a Certified Fresh 90 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 97 percent audience score. Rothman and Panitch are treating that mix of money and notices as proof Cretton can carry a theatrical event. The producing deal is how they try to keep him close after the reviews cool and the grosses slow.

Naruto Starts Shooting Early Next Year

Cretton’s next directing job is not a Sony title. Lionsgate has the live-action Naruto adaptation, from Masashi Kishimoto’s manga, and that film is due to shoot in early 2027. Hisako is producing it. Avi Arad’s company is also on the project. Sony’s new pact does not pull him off that camera.

Two other studios have claims on the years after that. Paramount is developing a Hawaii Five-O feature with Cretton attached to develop and direct, with Chris Bremner and Noah Oppenheim on the script. Marvel Studios still has a Shang-Chi sequel in development, a follow-up to the 2021 film he co-wrote and directed. None of those dates sit inside the Sony producing term as a directing commitment.

THE CALENDAR SONY DID NOT BUY

1. April 4, 2024: Launches Hisako with Jeyun Munford as president, with Naruto already set at Lionsgate.
2. July 31, 2026: Spider-Man: Brand New Day opens wide in North America for Sony and Marvel.
3. September 10, 2026: Paramount advances a Hawaii Five-O movie with Cretton attached to develop and direct.
4. September 22, 2026: Signs the three-year Sony overall deal through Hisako.
5. Early 2027: Naruto is due to start shooting for Lionsgate.

Read that list in order and the wager is plain. Sony signed him 12 days after the Paramount cop movie became public, and months before the manga film is supposed to roll. The studio that just released his biggest movie still has to wait on two rivals for the next times he says action.

Hisako Carries His Grandmother’s Name Into Sony

Hisako is the company Sony actually hired. Cretton launched it on April 4, 2024, with Munford, a former senior vice president at Universal and Lionsgate, as president of film and television. He named the banner after his grandmother, who handed him his first VHS camera when he was eleven. She was a nurse, he said, “curious, kind, and fiercely protective of her tribe.”

Munford’s credits as an executive include Strays, Marry Me and The 355 at Universal, and Deepwater Horizon, Long Shot and Now You See Me at Lionsgate. Cretton said she knows how to protect an artist’s cut. Sony’s statement names her beside him, which is how you can tell the studio is buying a shingle, not only a director’s name on a poster.

Before the Marvel movies, Cretton made Short Term 12, then The Glass Castle and Just Mercy. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings in 2021 moved him into franchise scale. He also co-created, directed and executive produced Wonder Man, the Marvel series with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Ben Kingsley that landed Abdul-Mateen an Emmy nomination. The Sony deal is the first time a studio has tied that whole banner to its lot for a set term.

Sony Still Wants the Brand New Day Follow-Up

Panitch’s statement does not mention a sequel title. It sells Cretton as a theatrical filmmaker Sony wants in its future, which is a different claim from a start-of-production memo.

Destin is a very special human, a deeply thoughtful visionary mind, a brilliant filmmaker in its truest sense and a marvelous storyteller who is a master at understanding the cinematic experience. We at Sony are proud to be making a future together and expanding our relationship with Destin, Jeyun and Hisako Films.

Sanford Panitch, Sony Pictures motion picture group president, in a statement

Rothman was shorter. “Destin is the real deal and we are lucky as hell to be in ongoing business with him and his team. Po’okela!” The Hawaiian word is a nod to Cretton’s Maui upbringing, and it is also the closest thing to a victory lap in the announcement. Cretton’s own line stayed on theaters, not on a numbered Spider-Man.

“I had the best time making Brand New Day with Tom Rothman, Sanford Panitch and their team, and I’m so excited to tell more meaningful stories that people can experience in theaters around the world,” he said. That is a producing-deal quote. It leaves the follow-up unpromised.

Treat the headline as a sequel lock and you miss the paper. Sony moved fast after a $2.479 billion gross, then wrote a contract that lets Cretton keep directing for other companies. The studio is paying to stay in business with Hisako while it tries to win the next Spider-Man date the old way, by asking.

Paramount and Marvel Already Hold the Other Scripts

The producing term can still matter. Sony controls a deep shelf of comic, video game and other properties, and Hisako now has a formal lane to develop films there. No title was attached to the announcement. The deal does not require Cretton to take a game adaptation, a spinoff or an original. It only puts his company in the room for three years.

Marvel still has a claim on him as a writer-director of Shang-Chi, and as a producer of the Holland films through the shared machine that made Brand New Day. Paramount has the Hawaii cop movie in early script. Lionsgate has the first new shoot. Sony has the relationship and the grosses. Those are four different assets, and only one of them changed on September 22.

Cretton built his name on modest dramas, then on a Marvel origin story, then on the highest domestic gross in history. Sony’s wager is that the Hisako office will turn that run into a pipeline the studio can own. The first test is not a press release. It is whether a Sony title gets a directing date after Naruto wraps, and whether that title is the Spider-Man sequel the lot already wants.

Until then the biggest film in Sony’s history is still in theaters, the producing deal is signed, and the next camera belongs to Lionsgate in early 2027.