Never underestimate the power of movies. Specifically the power of seeing a movie in the theater. Just when things looked bleakest, with superhero movies at an all time low, and mom and pop theaters shutting down left and right, we got some well-needed positive glow, right at thr place that needed it most. Z the multiplex.
This past summer at the box office, 2026, was nothing short of amazing. It was an absolute record setter. We’ll get into the details of exactly why in just a moment, but first, to put this all into context, you have to understand the state of the theatrical before this summer… movie theaters were at an all time low. In fact, they had been hurting since Covid. 2019 was the last decent year at the theaters where people were going on a regular basis as a popular activity. Then the pandemic hit in 2020, the world shut down, and the Streaming Networks took over. All of a sudden, everyone had a home theater and watching movies from one’s own house became the new norm.
And then came summer 2026. It was a summer where every single month, May-August featured a billion dollar movie. A movie that literally made over a billion dollars in theaters. In May, there was Michael, which told the story of Michael Jackson, in June we got Toy Story 5. In July it was the Odyssey. And in August it was Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which actually crossed the two billion dollar mark.
By summers end, the box office total reached a staggering height of 4.76 billion dollars. Now, I said earlier that this was the best since 2019, but it goes way beyond that. 2019 was just a good overall year at the movies, but there was nothing like this. The truth is, if you really want to find anything like this, you have to go all the way back to 2013, well over a decade ago. That summer, the box office reached 4.75 billion. So pretty close to this years 4.76.
2013 was the summer of movies like Iron Man 3, Despicable Me 2, Man of Steel, and Monsters University. The 4.75 billion number is unadjusted for inflation, so we can say that it probably tied this years numbers when all things were considered.
And there you have it. The best summer in over a decade. Better than the summer of Barbenheimer (Barbie and Oppenheimer delivering a one-two punch.) Is it a sign that movies are back? Hopefully. One has to also remember that this was the summer they got started with Obsession and Back Rooms, which both became tremendous hits on shoe string budgets. And one has to also take notice of what’s going on with the Odyssey, still selling out IMAX screenings a full two months after its release. There’s never been anything like this, any level of massive success quite like this, on IMAX before.
And finally, one has to note whatever in the world is going on with this new Spider-Man movie. The thing is, Spider-Man movies always do well, but they have also historically petered out, enough so that Sony decides to pull the plug on one incarnation and reboot it with another. Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man made it to three movies. Andrew Garfield only made it to two. And then here you have Tom Holland, a full four movies in, sitting a top the world. It’s no coincidence that Holland was also in the Odyssey, the other absolute smash of the summer. It’s a good time to be a movie fan. And now, once again, it’s a good time to actually go to the movies.