THE WEDNESDAY CHARTS: June and the first half of 2026 at the box office

THE WEDNESDAY CHARTS: June and the first half of 2026 at the box office | July preview | July 1, 2026 1) June and the first half of 2026 - June was a strong month at the box office. It finished even with the the pre-pandemic average of 2019-2018-2017, and it was ahead of last June by a wide margin. We're in high summer season - it's an excellent result. Year-to-date, the box office is down -17.9% from pre-pandemic levels. We haven't seen a deficit this small, in the teen numbers, over a sustained period, since moviegoing shut down in early 2020. It's very good news and we hope it continues; Bear in mind, Hollywood's summer starts with May, so right now, at the halfway point, summer is running -2.2% below the pre-pandemic average - also excellent: - So far this year, the industry is doing several things well: Original and character-driven stories are hot. Michael, Project Hail Mary, Devil Wears Prada (not original but certainly character-driven), the two low-budget horror pics (Obsession and Backrooms), even The Drama, and The Sheep Detectives worked; Family titles continue to do giant business: Toy Story and Super Mario have been sensational. Minions opens this week and Moana/live-action remake arrives the following week; As a result, moviegoing is weathering the loss of superhero business without falling behind... As noted, superheroes represent almost half of the BO lost since the pandemic (46% of it, here). This year's two big superhero sequels are opening in the second half of the year, but even without them, May and June kept up with past May/Junes that included Marvel's record-breaking Avengers 3 & 4 in 2019 and 2018. - Of course, we'd like to see the 1st quarter of each year pick it up. It's been an ongoing issue and it leaves the industry playing catch-up the rest of the year. We've mentioned it regularly - we'll leave it at that. 2) July preview - July is the No. 1 moviegoing month of the year. This year's lineup looks good, but as always momentum can shift fast. The following three movies are going to have to do a billion dollars domestically between them to keep business competitive. It's doable. The sequence is: July 1/today: Illumination's Minions & Monsters over the long holiday weekend; July 10/next week: Disney's Moana live-action remake; and July 17: Christopher Nolan's epic, The Odyssey: Overall - Moviegoing is making good progress now, based on a healthy mix of new stories and strong series. Audiences are responding. There have been misses (e.g., Masters of the Universe and last weekend's Supergirl) - there always are. In a few weeks, Universal will open Christopher Nolan's $250 million production of The Odyssey. It's the greatest story ever told, with a cast of 1,000s. And it's a lot of money for an historical epic adventure. Early tracking says it's going to pay off. Our last two posts were: SUPERGIRL | JACKASS: BEST AND LAST openings | Superhero movies at the box office | Where we are now | June 26 to 28, 2026 weekend here TOY STORY 5 | LEVITICUS | THE DEATH OF ROBIN HOOD openings | Family sequels | Where we are now | June 19 to 21, 2026 weekend here To see all of our work, be sure to upgrade: Upgrade [Methodology Note: For our monthly BO calculations, we take the complete weeks of each period (each week runs Friday to Thursday) and we line up the same weeks across the years, so we are comparing the same days/weeks/and day-mix, like apples-to-apples. There are different ways to do this and you might see slightly different figures - this is how we like to do it.] Source: https://franchisere.substack.com/p/the-wednesday-charts-june-and-the-first-half-of-2026-at-the-box-office-july-preview-of-upcoming-film-releases-minions-moana-the-odyssey-christopher-nolan