Summer Blockbusters Are Back: U.S. Box Office Poised for Best Season Since the Pandemic

It officially feels like we’re in a real summer movie season again—at least, as close as we’ve gotten since the world shut down and everyone discovered just how comfortable their couch is compared to movie theater seats. Remember when ‘A Quiet Place Part II’ and ‘Cruella’ tiptoed back into theaters in 2021 and everyone wondered if things would ever feel “normal” again? Well, we’re not totally back to pre-2020 days, but the numbers are showing signs of actual life at the box office.

The Comeback Trail

This year, judging by the early numbers and a few bits of cautiously optimistic buzz from industry folks, summer 2026 might actually be the best box office run theaters have seen since before the pandemic. For context, we’ve had some massive hits the last few summers—think ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, ‘Barbie’, and this year’s ‘Inside Out 2’. Even so, the overall summer haul hasn’t quite recaptured the glory days. Until now, maybe.

What’s driving that optimism? It kicked in after ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ launched with $6.7 million, which, paired with Michael's second-weekend numbers, made it the second-strongest opener for summer since the pandemic. Only Doctor Strange and his multiverse chaos did better back in 2022. Talk about a sequel nobody saw coming, performing better than anyone expected.

Adding to the heat, ‘Mortal Kombat II’ is coming up and looking at a sizable $40 to $50 million opening. For theaters, those are real, honest-to-goodness blockbuster numbers, and the summer isn’t even at full speed yet.

"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."
– Paul Dergarabedian, Comscore

So, What’s on the Slate?

• Big sequels and branded fare: ‘Toy Story 5’, ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’, and ‘Mortal Kombat II’ are all poised to make noise.
• Ambitious originals and bold new takes: ‘The Odyssey’ (supposedly a major spectacle) and 'Disclosure Day'—that last one’s the new Steven Spielberg movie, and yes, I’m also wondering who outside of film Twitter is excited for that.
• Family plays: Disney’s launching the live-action ‘Moana’, though whether audiences are still hungry for that brand of remake is up in the air.
• Franchise rollouts: ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ attempts to get Star Wars fans off the couch and back into theaters after years of watching at home. Fingers crossed.

As for the raw numbers, there will be 57 wide releases getting a shot in theaters over the summer. That’s more than 2025’s 54, and even higher than the “good old days” of 2019, when just 45 titles were in the running. Of those 57, only 34 come from the big guns or buzzy upstarts like A24 and Neon. So, yes, you get a big movie drop almost every single week—but not every weekend guarantees a winner, and several titles are still question marks.

The Big Unknowns

Honestly, there’s a bit of a gamble to this summer. Here are just a few of the head-scratchers:

Will a new Star Wars movie (‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’) actually convince people to buy tickets after years of oversaturation on Disney+? Do kids care about ‘Masters of the Universe,’ or is that just a nostalgia trip for grownups? And does Spielberg still have the draw to make an original film a hit, or are we living in a world where people only show up for IP sequels? The industry has no idea, and the audience hasn’t tipped its hand yet.

Then there’s the live-action 'Moana'. Are parents genuinely interested, or is this a case of 'we ran out of things to adapt, so here’s another one'?

Marketing vs. Making Noise

All of this would be a lot more straightforward if studios could just get the word out as efficiently as they could ten years ago—but that’s not how it actually works anymore. According to Bill Skelly from Greenlight Analytics, it’s not that people don’t care. In fact, there’s an audience for every film on the schedule. But with everyone’s feeds flooded and summer calendars packed, if marketing isn’t out there early and loud, a movie risks being the thing you watch only when your beach trip gets rained out.

"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... 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."
– Bill Skelly, Greenlight Analytics

Final Thoughts (and a Little Real Talk)

If the current momentum keeps up—with box office 14% ahead of last summer already—the $4 billion summer movie season might really happen again. But it could also go sideways if studios rest on their laurels or assume audiences will just show up because they tweeted a poster two weeks before release. The appetite is out there, but the business is riskier and weirder than ever—which, if you’re a fan of watching the industry sweat, is at least a little entertaining in itself.

We’re not at the finish line yet, and we haven’t even hit Memorial Day. So, as always: stay tuned. It might turn out to be an actual blockbuster summer, or we’ll be looking at a wild mix of hits, misses, and 'why did they even make this?' releases. Either way, grab some popcorn. It’s going to be interesting.