Hollywood is having its best summer since before the pandemic, and that hot streak is putting the annual box office on track to surpass $10 billion for the first time in seven years.
The season, which runs from the first weekend in May through Labor Day, has grossed $1.8 billion through Sunday. That's less than 2% below 2019 levels, or nearly a $30 million delay. Industry analysts closely monitor this period of the year because it typically accounts for around 40% of the total annual domestic box office.
“The summer box office is incredibly important,” said Paul Dergarabedian, head of market trends at movie data company Rentrak. “It's vitally important in terms of what the overall health of the industry looks like and what that portends for the entire year.”
What sets this summer apart is that it didn't start with a blockbuster action movie or a superhero team-up. Instead, the first big success of the season came with the release of disney “The Devil Wears Prada 2”, followed by universal A24's “Obsession” and “Backrooms,” two low-budget horror films from YouTube creators turned filmmakers.
It was also driven by residual ticket sales from Lionsgate “Michael”, the biographical film of Michael Jackson, which premiered at the end of April.
Together, those four films have contributed nearly $850 million to the domestic summer box office since the beginning of May, according to Rentrak data. Notably, that's roughly what Disney and Marvel's “Avengers: Endgame” had totaled at the 2019 box office during the same period.
Still from Pixar's “Toy Story 5.”
disney
Last week's release of Disney and Pixar's “Toy Story 5” provided another boost, posting the franchise's best opening with $160 million.
Combined, the few positive surprises are creating a stronger-than-expected domestic box office and a promising base for the second half of the year as the industry chases pre-pandemic levels.
As of Sunday, the 2026 box office had totaled $4.4 billion domestically, about 15% less than the $5.2 billion the 2019 box office had grossed over the same period.
Currently showing in theaters
Contributing to the surprisingly high ticket sales are films such as “Michael”, “Obsession” and even Amazon MGM “Project Hail Mary,” which premiered in March, is holding its own at the box office week after week.
Typically, after opening weekend, sales for a title will drop by 50% to 70%. But these movies were seeing drops of between 20% and 40% every week.
“Obsession” has accomplished an even rarer box office feat, as ticket sales increased in its second and third weekends in theaters, up 39% and 14%, respectively, according to data from The Numbers.
That success is a sign that the films are receiving solid word of mouth from audiences and that it is attracting new moviegoers to theaters.
“It's been one after another,” said Alex DelVecchio, general manager of Rutgers Cinema in Piscataway, New Jersey. “I always said this whole year was about getting to June 19. Because once you get to June 19, you get to this six weeks in a row. It's Toy Story, 'Supergirl,' Minions, 'Moana.' [‘The Odyssey’] and Spider-Man.”
The combined efforts of those six films could boost the summer box office to $4.2 billion, Dergarabedian said. The summer box office has only surpassed $4 billion once since 2019, and that was thanks to the double effort of Warner Bros. “Barbie” and Universal's “Oppenheimer” in 2023, according to data from Rentrak.
That threshold would mark a return to the normal cadence for the summer box office, which grossed more than $4 billion virtually every year between 2013 and 2019 before Covid shuttered theaters.
Posters for the movies “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” are displayed outside the Cinemark Somerdale 16 and XD in Somerdale, New Jersey, in 2023.
Hannah Beier | The Washington Post | fake images
Universal's “The Odyssey,” directed by Christopher Nolan, is currently expected to gross more than $100 million in its opening weekend and is expected to benefit significantly from premium large-format screenings.
sony “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” which was made in collaboration with Disney's Marvel Studios, could do even better, with some analysts predicting $200 million to $250 million for its opening weekend.
“'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' could be the biggest opening weekend of the year,” Dergarabedian said. “And that opens on July 31. What will that mean for August? Well, a lot, because it will add and contribute a lot of box office a month. Then, that sets up a fall and a holiday period. [where] “I don't think we're really going to see that big of a slowdown.”
