{"id":697528,"date":"2026-07-18T00:05:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T00:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/697528\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T00:05:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T00:05:19","slug":"thanks-to-movies-like-the-odyssey-and-obsession-2026-is-on-track-to-be-the-biggest-box-office-year-since-the-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/697528\/","title":{"rendered":"Thanks to movies like The Odyssey and Obsession, 2026 is on track to be the biggest box office year since the pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s already been a huge year at the movies, with the surprise success of Obsession, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie topping $1bn, and The Odyssey<\/a> now in theaters. And with huge releases like Spider-Man: Brand New Day<\/a> and Avengers: Doomsday<\/a> still to come, a new report suggests that the box office could top $10bn for the first time since the pre-pandemic high of 2019.<\/p>\n

According to the number crunchers at Rentrak (h\/t Variety<\/a>), ticket sales aren’t just up 10% on 2025 at this stage, they’re on par with 2019 \u2013 a banner year for theatrical releases, which had nine billion-dollar releases, including Avengers: Endgame, The Lion King, Frozen 2 and Joker. 2026 is unlikely to have quite that many sky-high performers (only Mario Galaxy and Michael have passed the $1bn threshold so far), but half a dozen isn’t out of the question with Toy Story 5, The Odyssey, Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday all in with a shot.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Most promising is the fact that it isn’t just superhero cinema propping up the theatrical business any longer. This year’s sole superhero movie so far, Supergirl<\/a>, flopped hard late last month, making less than Morbius<\/a> in its opening weekend, and is currently sitting on less than $120 million worldwide. The Mandalorian and Grogu<\/a> also underperformed at the box office<\/a>, pulling in just $340 million, making it the lowest-grossing live-action Star Wars movie to date.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos From<\/p>\n

In contrast, comedy lega-sequel The Devil Wears Prada 2 is at over $688 million, while Ryan Gosling sci-fi Project Hail Mary topped out at $683 million. The story of the summer, however, is Obsession. Curry Barker’s word-of-mouth smash was made for less than a million bucks and has gone on to make $428 million<\/a>, even outgrossing fellow horror sensation Backrooms ($374 million). The lesson seems to be that audiences want something fresh, whether it’s new spins on franchise fare or wholly original properties.<\/p>\n

The Odyssey is the latest box office hopeful to hit screens. And it’s off to a good start \u2013 not only is it the highest-rated film of Christopher Nolan’s career<\/a> on Rotten Tomatoes, it also got a full 5* in our The Odyssey review<\/a> (the only review that matters, of course). If you’ve already seen the film, we’ve got a whole host of analysis waiting for you, including The Odyssey ending explained<\/a> and a full breakdown of The Odyssey changes<\/a> from Homer’s epic poem.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

The latest box office hopeful, The Odyssey, is in theaters now. Before you head to the multiplex, check out our Odyssey beginner’s guide<\/a>, and then see if you agree with our updated list of the Best Christopher Nolan movies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bringing all the latest movie news, features, and reviews to your inbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s already been a huge year at the movies, with the surprise success of Obsession, The Super Mario…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-697528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}