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Summer US box office hits all-time $4.76b record: how audiences surrendered to moviegoing
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- Title
- Box Office: How Summer 2026 Hit a Record $4.76 Billion in U.S.
- Authors
- Anthony D'Alessandro
- Published
- Sep 7 2026
- Word count
- 2194 words
This non-frequent movie-goer went multiple times this summer since there were multiple Anne Hathaway movies, simple as that in this house.
She somehow made a JJ Abrams movie not suck. Anne Hathaway literally is movie magic and is worth whatever her talent agency is asking for.
https://www.tiktok.com/@highforhoes/video/7681690546162732308?q=anne%20hathaway%20edit&t=1788809517505
Interesting numbers.
I have to say though, it seems strange to say something about the box office summer without looking at what other things people were spending their time on this summer (except not subscribing to streaming services, according to the numbers).
How was the weather?
How about trends in other activities? Museums? Sporting events? Restaurants?
Thinking about what my friends do, there wasn't much of a movie-going trend this summer. People did a lot of things locally because they travelled less because of prices.
I'd be very interested in more context here, and more anecdotal stuff on what may have really caused all these people to poll the way they did to augment the statistics.
I think it's reasonable to assume less travel -> increase in moviegoing. I know the prices are higher, but moviegoing is still one of the cheapest activities you can do outside your house other than like going to the park or something.
Concert going has taken a dip this year because of the affordability crisis and the absurdly high ticket prices that have driven people to drop concerts in favor of cheaper alternatives.
Probably important to note that the World Cup was hosted here so there was an influx of tourism that could have increased those numbers.
I'm not sure if this is entirely true. This article suggests numbers are good, even if people are being more selective on who they see. For some anecdotal evidence, I was at a My Chemical Romance concert and nearly every seat at the arena was sold. (And there was no Ticketmaster resale for the event. Not that it keeps people from scalping, but it does change how that whole scheme works.)
Interesting. I was still going off the narrative from the beginning of the summer which was the blue dot fever one that the article covers.
Movie-going already took a huge dip because of Covid, though. It's hard to even compare well-performing movies now to pre-covid well-performing movies when it comes to box office numbers for that reason. Bouncing back some this year is striking within a landscape where movie-going was already lower than it had been a decade ago.
I also don't think the comparison to concerts is all that apt. Concerts are usually much more expensive than going to the movies even if you do get snacks at the movie and don't buy anything more than your ticket at the concert, and that's before bringing in other factors like how comparatively difficult it can be to get to the venue. It makes sense that concert attendance would be more sensitive to economic conditions given that.
I think it came down to it being as simple as: there were a lot of really good (or at least, really popular) movies that were varied enough for everyone. Big blockbuster? You had the biggest Spiderman yet, Nolan delivered another raving success with Oddessy, and Michael was a surefire hit for the older millennial/Gen X crowd (among several other films).
More into indies? We're hitting a potential new era of filmmaking with Obsession and Backrooms being the dark horses of the summer, and we even had a web show premiere its finale in theaters. Animation? Toy Story 5 was there, and there was a few other hits that didn't blow up, but contributed. Mandalorian and Moana (if we call that "animation") underperformed, but it still got people in seats. And Minions continues to minions.
Look at any genre and I'm sure there's something that catches your interest this summer. I don't think any major trend changed this year on the consumer end. There was just more stuff getting people out to theaters this time.
Seems like you have been reporting on this for years now, and it is either the best year ever or certain doom for cinema. Guess it just comes down to whether they release good stuff or not.
Ngl I never really understood why theaters suffered post-covid. My relationship to movies didn’t really change pre and post covid. A common hypothesis is that the pandemic introduced people to streaming, but, like, who hadn’t heard of streaming in 2019.
Less introduced, more 'had the time and inclination to setup a massive backlog and be in the habit of working through it' would be my guess.
My partner and I used to go to small indie theaters that showed a mixture of recent hits, obscure films, and older movies. We'd pick out a movie poster that looked cool and was scheduled to play in the next hour or two, and then go in blind. We wouldn't even look up the genre first.
But then those theaters closed and our only options were big chain theaters, which are much more expensive, too far away to visit on a whim (45+ minutes because we live in the boonies), and have a far more limited selection. After covid, every time we got the itch to go see a movie, we'd looked at what was playing and nothing grabbed us (we're not into superhero movies or little kids' movies).
It's only very recently that we've started seeing movies again because the selection is more interesting now. It's still nowhere as good as it used to be with the indie theaters, though. Those are covid casualties we'll probably never get back (especially our local in-town theater, since it's already been divided and repurposed into shops).
My family got a good home theatre system, and we've hardly been to a theatre since then. We'll wait till a movie has a home release. If I see movies in theatre, they're events where I'm going for the social experience of an anime film's Western showing.
I went to the movie theater more this year than the last 5 years combined primarily because I'd heard about all the great movies releasing this year and because I got a good deal on AMC A-List. The cost of movies has become prohibitively expensive without it.
I’m just one data point, but I haven’t seen a movie in theaters since Dune 2. I’m much more of a TV show person. However, the announcement of a new Nathan Fielder movie to be released in mid-October means I will be going to the theater again soon.
Let's not further how the cost of a movie ticket likely bolstered the numbers being what were probably seen in similar periods 5 or more years ago.
We went to a movie theater a few weeks ago for the first time since COVID-19, since all reports suggested that Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey needed a theater-scale presentation to get the full experience, and it was a rainy Sunday afternoon with cheaper matineé pricing. Our local is one of the few IMAX locations remaining, but Spider-Man: Brand New Day had already bumped The Odyssey to a conventional screen.
I can't say I'd repeat the experience. While the visuals were fine and mostly benefitted from the full immersion, the Dolby audio was nearly intolerable with Nolan's preferred over-layered sound, heavy use of near-"brown note" subwoofer decibel levels, and jump-scares. The 45 minutes of ads before the movie started were just noxious.
Maybe I'm pickier than the general audience seeking escapist thrills...
Odyssey was a disappointment to me simply because it doesn't need IMAX. I thought it was good but the pacing was weird, the narrative was kinda janky... I straight told my brother who was waiting to stream it that it's not a bad decision.