The Summer Box Office Hits You Didn't Realize Were Box-Office Hits

The summer of 2026 is the biggest summer at the box office on record! (Please clap). So, everything is hunky dory in Hollywood, right?

Not really. Despite the highest-grossing summer ever, the total moviegoing audience was actually down nearly 250 million attendees compared to the summer of 2019 (or 30 percent), but thanks to both inflation (Thanks, Obama!) and those really expensive formats (IMAX, Dolby, etc.), Hollywood accounting made it look hugely successful.

Unfortunately, most of that money was, as is so often the case, in the hands of a few: Spider-Man: Brand New Day broke the domestic box-office record (and earned $2.5 billion worldwide), The Odyssey broke the record for an R-rated film, Toy Story 5 dominated the family category with $1.1 billion worldwide, and the other two monster word-of-mouth hits, Obsession and Backrooms, actually had a combined domestic total less than Toy Story 5.

And from there, five of the next six movies in the top 13 of the summer were actually huge flops: The Mandalorian & Grogu, Moana, Disclosure Day, Mortal Kombat II, and … oof … Supergirl, which earned only $126 million worldwide on a $175 million budget.

BUT, there were some sneaky box-office winners over the summer, and we all love a sneaky winner, don’t we? The absolutely delightful The Sheep Detectives, for instance, earned $132 million on a $75 million budget, and that doesn’t account for what I know has been a hugely successful film in PVOD and streaming because everyone I know has seen it and loved it, as should be the case.

Then there is Coyote vs. Acme, which had a fairly mediocre first weekend outing of $15 million, but actually managed to outearn its opening weekend in its third weekend, as it has mustered $64 million worldwide, so far. Pretty good for a film that Ketchup paid $50 million for, especially considering how huge it’s almost certainly going to be on PVOD and streaming, not to mention all the merch it’s likely to sell. (Suck it, Warner Brothers, whose entire slate of films this summer earned less than Brand New Day).

We shan’t overlook The Invite, either, which is another film that’s—based on the buzz I’ve heard—probably been seen on streaming as much as it was seen in theaters, where it grossed $55 million on a budget between $6 and $15 million (depending on who you ask).

We should begrudgingly congratulate Angel Studios, too, for their Young Washington, which I suspect dishonestly mythologizes our First President and played up his Christianity for nearly $50 million at the box office (on a $20 million budget).

Hokum, my favorite horror movie of the year, brought in a tidy $17 million on a $5 million budget (and continues to find an audience on streaming). Another horror movie called Buddy that slipped by me managed $21 million on a $3 million budget, and even Jackass: Best and Last — despite seemingly disappearing immediately into the ether — scored $27 million worldwide on a $10 million budget (doesn’t cost a lot to shove ping-pong balls up Steve-O’s butt).

And finally, Hadestown: The Musical earned $20 million, outgrossing Hamilton for the live stage show capture in box office history. It’s pretty great, too (in spite of Orpheus). More of these, please.

You might also assume that The Breadwinner slyly broke into profitability, too. But you’d be wrong. That movie bombed, even with a meager $25 million budget. Because it was bad. Very bad.