The Odyssey and Spider-Man propel record-breaking summer box office worldwide — SkimNews
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- Spider-Man: Brand New Day has grossed $2.4bn worldwide, ranking as the third-highest-grossing film of all time with the second-best opening weekend behind Avengers: Endgame (2019) and reaching $1bn in just six days.
- Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey earned $1.6bn to become the year's top-grossing 'original' movie despite drawing on Homer's epic poem, while low-budget horror originals Backrooms ($394m) and Obsession ($513m) also lifted the market.
- The US summer box office totaled $4.761bn from May 1 to September 7, edging 2013's $4.756bn record, with Toy Story 5, Michael, and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie each clearing the $1bn mark.
- Tom Holland and Zendaya starred in both blockbuster films, which coincided with the pair's wedding celebrations.
- Sequels and spinoffs underperformed — Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu managed just $345.4m, Supergirl $126.4m, and Minions & Monsters ($518.1m) came in at roughly half of 2022's Minions: The Rise of Gru.
- European attendance surged: EMEA cinema admissions jumped 88% year-on-year in August, with France logging its best August on record in 46 years (19.9m admissions, up 50% from 2025), Italy recording its best-ever June–August period (20.8m admissions, €162.3m), Spain climbing 71%, and the Netherlands rising 77%.
- UK August admissions reached over 17m — a 56% YoY jump and the biggest August since 2018, the second-best month since Barbenheimer opened in July 2023.
Why it matters: Original and adapted IP — Homer's epic poem and a Marvel reboot — decisively outperformed legacy franchises like Supergirl, Mandalorian and Grogu, and Minions & Monsters, turning 'franchise fatigue' from a critical concern into a receipts problem. The recovery is broad-based: EMEA admissions up 88% YoY and France logging its best August in 46 years means studios looking at 2026 greenlight decisions now have cross-territory evidence that audiences will show up for non-franchise bets.
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