In 2021, the release of A Quiet Place Part II and Cruella over Memorial Day weekend kicked off the first summer movie season since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down theaters and changed moviegoing habits forever. While there have been some big summer hits over the past five years, including Top Gun: Maverick, Barbie, Oppenheimer, and Inside Out 2, the overall summer box office has not reached pre-pandemic heights. While 2026 won’t return theaters to pre-pandemic levels, a new report suggests the summer box office will be the best it has been since the shutdown.
Deadline reports that The Devil Wears Prada 2’s $6.7-million opening, which,combined with Michael‘s second-weekend hold, made for the second-best kickoff to the summer movie season since the pandemic, behind Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in 2022. This momentum is expected to continue with the release of Mortal Kombat II, which is projected to open between $40 and $50 million. With the box office already 14% ahead of the same period in 2025, the 2026 summer movie season is expected to deliver a $4-billion-grossing season thanks to titles like Toy Story 5, The Odyssey, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Paul Dergarabedian, Head of Marketplace Trends at Comscore, said:
“This is shaping up to be one of the best summer movie seasons of all time and certainly since the pandemic, with a shot at rivaling the performance of the epic ‘Barbenheimer’-powered summer of 2023 where the domestic tally hopped over the $4-billion mark, which was the pre-pandemic benchmark for the season.”
Deadline notes that there are 57 new releases earning wide release during the summer movie season, up from 54 titles in 2025 and even above 2019’s 45. However, only 34 of those titles are from major studios or distinguished labels like A24 and Neon. While there is essentially one big movie a week, many big titles have question marks hanging over them. Will The Mandalorian and Grogu get audiences out to the theater for a new Star Wars movie after years on Disney+? Can Masters of the Universe get young kids to care about the ’80s property? Does Steven Spielberg’s name still have selling power to a general audience for an original film like Disclosure Day? Who exactly wants the live-action Moana?
These are all questions that the summer box office will decide. Yet a big factor will be how the studios decide to market these titles, particularly as the films get closer to their release date. Greenlight Analytics CEO Bill Skelly said:
“The biggest takeaway is that there is an audience for every single one of these films, but they have to be made aware of them. The methods for attracting customers have evolved, yet the film industry is failing to modernize its playbook. People’s summer schedules fill up quickly, making it increasingly difficult to break through the noise; waiting until the final weeks before a release to start pushing is simply too late. The industry excels at marketing, it is just not very good at advertising. The interest is there, but studios must learn how to actually convert it. Ultimately, unless you learn to translate interest into box office revenue, you’re either Spider-Man or you’re banking on being someone’s rainy-day backup plan.”
Given that we haven’t even hit Memorial Day yet, we won’t have a better picture of just how impressive the summer box-office season will be for weeks to come.
