Topline
Two summer hits starring Hollywood darling Tom Holland—and a pair of surprising breakout horror hits—have pushed the summer box office past a $4 billion gross for only the second time since the COVID-19 pandemic decimated the industry more than six years ago.
Zendaya and Tom Holland in Rome on June 23, 2026.
AFP via Getty Images
Key Facts
“Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” which has been setting records since its July 31 release, “Toy Story 5,” “The Odyssey,” “Backrooms” and “Obsession” have fueled a summer return to movie theaters worth more than $4 billion domestically since May.
This summer movie season is only the second to hit the milestone since 2020 (“Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” pushed the summer of 2023 to the same mark) and is on track to become the highest-grossing summer since 2019, Variety reported Tuesday.
“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” leads the summer box office with a $655 million gross domestically to date, followed by “Toy Story 5” with $470 million and “The Odyssey” (which is expected to take second place before its theatrical run is done) at $461 million.
“Obsession,” a low-budget horror flick that took Hollywood by storm,” grossed $263.3 million domestically in May and “Backrooms,” a horror directed by a 20-year-old YouTube star, also stunned the industry with a $197.4 million gross.
“The Devil Wears Prada 2,” which was released on the first day of summer, rounds out the season’s top earning films with $220.5 million.
BIG NUMBER
4. That’s how many actors star in at least two of the summer’s biggest blockbusters. Holland, Zendaya and Jon Bernthal are all in both “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” and “The Odyssey,” and Anne Hathaway has leading roles in “The Odyssey” and “The Devil Wears Prada 2.”
SURPRISING FACT
The two summers to have crossed the $4 billion mark since Covid owe a debt to Christopher Nolan. He directed both “The Odyssey” and “Oppenheimer.”
KEY BACKGROUND
The $4 billion summer box office mark is a major post-pandemic milestone, but was essentially the norm before Covid re-shaped how movie-goers watch films. The domestic summer season topped $4 billion in 11 of the 12 summers before the pandemic (it missed in 2017) but earnings fell to less than $100 million in 2020 and didn’t rise to the benchmark again until 2023. Analysts did think this summer would cross the $4 billion line, but the box office wasn’t projected to do so until closer to Labor Day and, like 2023, it was expected to just barely hit the mark. Instead, “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” and “The Odyssey” significantly outperformed expectations, the two horror films became surprise hits and the contributions of legacy IP—like “Toy Story” and “The Devil Wears Prada” —turned it into a smashing success.
TANGENT
Of the 20th highest-grossing films domestically so far this year, 17 of them are summer movies. “Michael” ($242.5 million), “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” ($39.2 million) and “Project Hail Mary” ($34.3 million) are the year’s only hits to be released outside of the May to August window.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR
If this will be Hollywood’s first $10 billion year since the pandemic. The surprisingly strong summer could lead the domestic box office to the $10 billion mark if movies coming later this year—including “Avengers: Doomsday,” “Dune: Part Three” and “The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping”—pull their weight.