Last year, the hopes of a fruitful summer box office free from the shackles of the pandemic or Hollywood strikes were dashed, as a handful of underperforming films kept the domestic total flat from the prior year at $3.6 billion.
But with a lineup filled with a higher quantity of films, highly anticipated franchise titles and top films from Hollywood’s most acclaimed directors, there are high expectations that this will be the best summer for theaters since before the pandemic, surpassing the $4.03 billion grossed during the “Barbenheimer” summer of 2023.
In fact, box office analysis site The Numbers predicted that the domestic total for the summer period, which lasts from the first Friday of May to Labor Day, could top $4.2 billion, a mark that the box office cleared in four out of five summers between 2015 and 2019.
But in order to get there, the summer box office must not only avoid suffering multiple flops like last year, where high profile films like Pixar’s “Elio” and Blumhouse’s “M3GAN 2.0” misfired, but its recent trend of supporting multiple tentpoles at once must continue.
The box office has kept that trend going in the start of the year. Despite facing significant competition from “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” Amazon MGM’s “Project Hail Mary” has legged out superbly, passing $300 million domestic and $600 million worldwide this past weekend. And even with “Michael” hitting theaters, it maintained a screen count of more than 3,500 in its sixth weekend, becoming the first film since “Deadpool & Wolverine” in September 2024 to do so.
May might be a slow start
In a theatrical market that will be more crowded than the past two years, that’s the kind of carrying capacity theaters will be hoping for. If “Michael” holds well in the coming weeks while “The Devil Wears Prada 2” opens and legs out strong and “Mortal Kombat II” finds its own lane with a predominantly male gamer audience, that will be a big sign that the only thing stopping Hollywood from getting back to a $4 billion summer is consistent quality.
That said, don’t be surprised if the season kicks off with a May that can only, at best, match last year’s total. Remember that Memorial Day weekend 2025 set a new record for the summer holiday before inflation adjustment thanks to Disney’s remake of “Lilo & Stitch” and Paramount’s franchise finale “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.”
Memorial Day weekend this year simply isn’t equipped to match that. Disney’s 2026 entry, Lucasfilm’s “The Mandalorian & Grogu,” is tracking decently but is currently expected to only do somewhat better than the $103 million four-day opening/$213.7 million domestic total of the “Star Wars” 2018 bust “Solo” and nowhere near the $182 million opening/$423 million domestic total of “Lilo & Stitch.”
Beyond that film, the holiday releases are headlined by the Paramount horror film “Passenger” and Neon and Boots Riley’s anticapitalist satire “I Love Boosters,” both of which will likely contribute less than $50 million domestically.
“We’re predicting $1.1 billion will be earned by movies released in May, which is exactly the same as last year,” said Bruce Nash, founder of The Numbers and Nash Information Systems. “‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ could help kick-start things, but we’d need something very surprisingly, like ‘The Sheep Detectives’ or ‘Mortal Kombat II’ really breaking out beyond their core audiences, to make it feel like we’re having a runaway successful summer as early as May.”
The Spielberg question
June is where business could seriously pick up. On their own, the trio of Amazon MGM’s “Masters of the Universe,” Paramount’s “Scary Movie 6” and Fathom/Glitch’s YouTube sensation “The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act” may not be heavy lifters. But those are three films targeted at very distinct age demographics that could combine for a strong start to the month.
And in the middle of the month, the summer’s first major contender for top-grossing movie of the year will arrive: Disney/Pixar’s “Toy Story 5.” It was two years ago that Pixar set a then-animation record of nearly $1.7 billion worldwide with “Inside Out 2” from a mid-June release slot. Considering that “Toy Story 4” grossed $434 million domestic and $1.07 billion worldwide, “Toy Story 5” may not get as far at the box office as Joy and Anxiety did two years ago but should get loads of turnout from millennials who grew up watching Pixar’s flagship franchise and now have kids of their own.
Then there are the wild cards, starting with Universal/Amblin’s “Disclosure Day.” For older moviegoers and hardcore cinephiles, the words “sci-fi alien thriller directed by Steven Spielberg” will be enough to sell them on a ticket. But consider that since Spielberg’s 2011 film “The Adventures of Tintin” grossed $374 million worldwide, only one of the eight movies he has released has made more: 2018’s bestseller adaptation “Ready Player One” with $607.8 million worldwide.
Can Spielberg be the box office force he once was? “Disclosure Day” is one of two auteur-driven offerings Universal is bringing to theaters this summer, and whether it breaks out will likely come down to post-release word-of-mouth as its deliberately cryptic marketing campaign will likely hamper its pre-release buzz, especially among younger moviegoers who don’t have fond childhood memories of seeing films like “E.T.” and “Jurassic Park” in theaters.
The other big wild card is “Supergirl,” the second film in James Gunn’s rebooted DC Universe after the respectable launch of “Superman” last year. That film was able to take advantage of strong word-of-mouth and nostalgia among older moviegoers who saw the original “Superman” in the 1970s. But at a time when comic book films aren’t as consistent as they once were, will moviegoers buy into a new version of a superhero that has only been seen in a panned 1984 film and as a supporting character in the 2023 bomb “The Flash”?
Christopher Nolan and Minions
July will be a month defined by Universal. On the lucrative Fourth of July weekend, Illumination’s “Minions & Monsters” will look to bring back the “Gentleminions” trend from 2022 and match the $370 million domestic, $940 million global total of “Minions: The Rise of Gru.”
Then, on July 17, Christopher Nolan will bring “The Odyssey,” a film that sold out opening night Imax 70mm screenings a year ago. After Nolan turned “Oppenheimer,” a three-hour film about the making of the atomic bomb, into a $975 million global hit, he proved that his drawing power as a filmmaker is beyond question or compare. Now, as he takes on the sword and sandals genre with his adaptation of Homer’s millennia-old epic, the Oscar-winning director could have his first non-Batman $1 billion-plus grosser.
Of course, Universal’s not the only one bringing heavyweights. Disney has yet another live-action remake in July with “Moana,” as Dwayne Johnson will play Maui once more. Like “Lilo & Stitch,” “Moana” is already getting trashed on social media with its trailers. But Twitter isn’t real life, and there’s little reason to believe that a remake of a film that became a pandemic streaming hit and gave rise to a $1 billion monster sequel in 2024 won’t be another smash.
As for the surprises, keep an eye out for Angel’s “Young Washington” on Fourth of July weekend. It’s been three years since Angel broke out with its big indie hit “Sound of Freedom,” and the studio is hoping to bring in a predominantly conservative audience excited for America 250 with a biopic about the start of George Washington’s rise from British soldier to revolutionary general.
Spidey swings again
The August box office will largely be defined by Sony/Marvel’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” which should be another contender for $1 billion worldwide even if it doesn’t reach the immense $1.9 billion total of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” back in 2021. But Nash believes that there are some films that might stand out in the final weeks of the season.
“I have my eye on [Warner Bros.’] ‘The End of Oak Street’, which we’re already predicting will make around $70 million, and [Ketchup Entertainment’s] ‘Coyote vs. Acme,’” he said. “Our prediction is fairly modest for the latter, partly because of its history, but I think it’s a smart back-to-school release. We have it earning $42 million, which would still be a good result.”
As the summer season kicks off, the domestic box office total stands at $2.55 billion, on par with the year-to-date pace of 2023 and 12.5% ahead of last year. That gap will likely narrow after Memorial Day weekend, but should increase not long after that.
Thanks to a strong spring, there is significant optimism that the final domestic total for the year will pass $10 billion. But as we saw last year, it only takes a few underperformers for the forecast to change. We will find out soon whether Hollywood brings its best and provides a summer more reminiscent of pre-COVID days gone by.
