Summer Movie Box Office Winners & Losers For 2026: Did Everyone Win?

Posted in: Box Office, Movies | Tagged: a24, anne hathaway, box office, christopher nolan, Focus Features, sony, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, summer movie box office, Warner Bros

Summer Movie Box Office Winners & Losers For 2026: Did Everyone Win?

The summer movie box office season is over, and we have our list of winners & losers from a record-breaking summer at the movies.

Published Thu, 10 Sep 2026 18:17:13 -0500
by Jeremy Konrad
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Article Summary

• Summer movie box office 2026 hit a record $4.76 billion, with all four summer months topping $1 billion domestically.
• Spider-Man: Brand New Day ruled the summer movie box office, while The Odyssey and Toy Story 5 also soared past expectations.
• Big winners included Sony, Universal, Christopher Nolan, Anne Hathaway, and breakout filmmakers behind Obsession and Backrooms.
• Major summer movie box office losers included Warner Bros, Star Wars, and smaller specialty films squeezed out by IP hits.

The summer movie box office season is now over, and while fewer people are going to the movies, they are still showing up in droves, making the summer of 2026 the most successful in history at $4.76 billion. All four summer months scored over $1 billion in grosses, a first. Young people returned to theaters en masse, helping young filmmakers become household names and strengthening the idea that Christopher Nolan is the new king of film. Studios like Lionsgate, Focus Features, A24, and Sony saw some of their films become their highest-grossing films ever, and, in Sony's case, the third-highest-grossing film ever. Every genre had a hit, theaters sold tons of popcorn buckets, and everyone had a great time. Let's pick some actual winners and losers, and check in on my predictions from when summer began.

Summer Box Office Winners & Losers

Winner- Sony/The MCU: The ultimate winner of the summer. A little film called Spider-Man: Brand New Day was probably always going to be the biggest film of the summer, but absolutely nobody saw it reach the heights it has. It has been the number one film for seven straight weekends and has grossed $2.4 billion worldwide, with $924 million of that coming here in the US. That makes it the third-highest-grossing film of all time, and this week it will become the highest-grossing film domestically of all time. Not bad. This is the kind of momentum Marvel Studios was hoping for heading into the rerelease of Avengers: Endgame this fall, and Avengers: Doomsday in December.

Winner- Young Filmmakers: A24's Backrooms film and Focus Features' Obsession took the box office by storm in May, with both films catching fire at the box office and becoming huge cultural touchstones for 2026. Backrooms became the biggest film in A24 history, grossing $393 million worldwide, while Obsession became the biggest film in Focus Features history, grossing $509 million and earning tons of awards buzz. The directors of those two films, Kane Parsons and Curry Barker, are now two of the most in-demand directors in town and have opened up the floodgates for studios to look outside their own systems for young voices in film.

Winner- Anne Hathaway: Hard to argue that she is not the king of Hollywood this year. She had The Devil Wears Prada 2 march to over $600 million at the box office, then starred in Nolan's The Odyssey, which has made $1.6 billion. She also has roles in A24's Mother Mary and The End of Oak Street, and this fall stars in Verity, a Colleen Hoover adaptation that is sure to be a hit. What a year for her.

Loser- Warner Bros: Boy, what a difference a year makes. Supergirl was a massive failure; they were proven wrong about Coyote Vs Acme, as that film keeps making good money; Mortal Kombat II was a disappointment; Evil Dead Burn failed to find an audience; and The End of Oak Street didn't do what they hoped. Oh, and they are still technically up for sale. To put how bad the Warner Bros summer movie box office went into perspective: Spider-Man outgrossed the entire WB summer slate in just its opening weekend. Oof.

Loser- Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu became the lowest-grossing film in the franchise and were met with a shrug from moviegoers. Never did I think I would see the day when a Star Wars film would fail to be a huge event, let alone fail to be one of the summer's biggest films. Will the course correct with Starfighter next year? The jury is out.

Winner- Universal/Christopher Nolan: Speaking of Warner Bros failures, how could they possibly have let Nolan ever walk out the door? They have lost over $2 billion at the box office between Oppenheimer and The Odyssey, not to mention a Best Picture winner. Universal happily gives him whatever he wants and rakes in the cash. Talk about an all-time fumble.

Loser- The Specialty, Smaller Film: Lost in all of the IP high grosses is the further eroding of the smaller budget film. They are getting squeezed out of the market big time, with even arthouse cinemas booking the big IP films as well to get people in the door. There were bright spots, including A24's The Invite and Amazon MGM Studios' film The Sheep Detectives, but this has to turn around quickly. Fall, winter, and awards season will help with that, but the summer movie box office is not the time to launch an indie film anymore.

Here is the list of top-grossing studios for the summer of 2026 (domestically):

1. Universal, $1.23 billion
2. Disney, $1.034 billion
3. Sony, $1 billion, +459%
4. Lionsgate, $270M
5. A24 – $244M
6. Warner Bros, $239.3M
7. Paramount, $219.8M
8. Amazon MGM Studios: $170.1M

At the beginning of the summer movie box office season each year, I guess the top 10 grossing films domestically. Here was my guess:

1. Spider-Man: Brand New Day
2. Toy Story 5
3. Odyssey
4. Moana
5. Minions and Monsters
6. Mandalorian & Grogu
7. Supergirl
8. Disclosure Day
9. Scary Movie 6
10. Masters of the Universe

And here is the actual top ten:

1. Spider-Man: Brand New Day: $923.2M
2. The Odyssey: $589M
3. Toy Story 5: $479.9M
4. Obsession: $263.4M
5. Michael: $242.5M
6. The Devil Wears Prada 2: $220.6M
7. Backrooms: $197.5M
8. Minions & Monsters: $183.1M
9. Star Wars: Mandalorian & Grogu: $177.7M
10. Moana: $126.2M

Michael opened the last weekend in April, and the majority of its crazy run took place in the summer. I got six of the top films correctly, but only placed one properly, and that was Spider-Man. Not great. Nobody saw Obsession or Backrooms coming, but I should have known The Devil Wears Prada 2 would hit hard; that was a mistake. I also stand firm that Masters of the Universe was not a complete flop, and that it will end up being a success for Amazon MGM, and get a sequel. The biggest miss in my mind was Supergirl. What a terrible film, and completely forgettable in every way. Not my best showing here, but my predictions were a bit better!

Here were my summer movie box office predictions:

• Supergirl will only make half as much as her cousin worldwide.
• Only the top two films in my top ten will cross the $1 billion mark worldwide.
• No horror film will cross $100 million domestically this summer.
• The lowest-grossing film of the summer will be The Breadwinner.
• Coyote vs Acme will completely bomb and fail to make $35 million domestically.

Just kidding! Supergirl was way less than half of what Superman made, but the top three films went over $1 billion, and Michael got there as well. Two horror films sailed way past the $100 million mark, and Coyote Vs Acme has passed the $35 million mark domestically. And while The Breadwinner was a huge miss, it barely outgrossed Jackass: Best and Last, Passenger, and Hokum, and was not, in fact, the lowest-grossing film of the summer.

So I guess you can call me a loser of the summer box office season. With how big the summer was, and how fun it was to go to the movies and track all this, that is okay.

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