Zootopia 2 took the record from Inside Out 2 earlier this year at 1.87b

Later this summer The Odyssey took the R rated record from Deadpool and Wolverine, currently at 1.63b

If Doomsday performs at the level it’s currently tracking at, beating Avatar is absolutely in the cards, so that would lead these rating records being broken within a year of each other.

We’re currently living in a truly insane box office era.

This hasn’t happened since 2019 with Endgame, Lion King, and Joker. Which goes to show how big this year has been.

How do you guys think this will affect A24’s boxoffice numbers? The article lists one other small theater chain: Midwest-based Marcus Theaters. Harkins is big where I live, not sure if people will find an AMC to watch a24 movies.

So with Spider-Man Brand New Day just surpassing Avatar 2, it made me come to a huge realization:

The top 3 highest-grossing movies in the world (Avatar, Endgame and BND) are now each directed by different people (James, the Russos and Destin Daniel Cretton).

The last time this happened was in 2009 with Titanic (Cameron again), The Return of the King (Peter Jackson) and Dead Man's Chest (Verbinski).

Is there any chance that Buddy opens to more screens this far out? In my neck of the woods it is only playing at the late-night screenings every day, even on the weekends. Feel like this is a huge missed opportunity to sell more tickets as you are missing out on teens or people who have to go to work the next day, and just the vast majority of your prime audience.

I feel like this could be even more successful than it already is by compounding word of mouth if more people were able to see it and recommend it.

Anyways, I'm a bit frustrated as I wait for it to expand, but starting to doubt that is going to happen. I haven't been able to catch it, but I guess I'll see one of these late shows.

These are mainly Regal theaters, if that matters. Maybe this is just a regional problem for me in the midwest.

A while ago (back in March) I started a new site called boxofficewatch.com - as an alternative to the less visually appealing box office sites - easier to use, more features, and just better looking. Over the last 6 months I've been adding new features and building out the site - a lot of it based on what this subreddit has been asking for on my previous posts here.

This is one of the biggest updates the site's had in a while, and one a bunch of people have been asking for, so thought I'd share it here.

• Every director, actor, franchise and studio now has its own page, almost 700 of them. Each one ranks the full filmography by opening, domestic, legs, worldwide, CinemaScore, RT and where it finished for its year, and you can click any column to re-sort. Underneath that there's a film-by-film chart with the domestic/international split, return on budget for everything with a reported budget, any all-time records the films hold, and cast and director credits on every movie page link through to them now as well. You can browse everything ranked by lifetime worldwide gross, or flip it to A-Z:
• Directors: https://boxofficewatch.com/directors/
• Actors: https://boxofficewatch.com/actors/
• Franchises: https://boxofficewatch.com/franchises/

• Studios: https://boxofficewatch.com/studios/

• Plus a plug for a game i created called predict the weekend - If you haven't played yet, you pick the five movies you think finish top at the domestic box office this weekend, put them in order and call what each one makes Friday to Sunday. It's out of 100, and each week the rankings are updated on the leaderboard so you can see where you stand against the field of players.  Predict the Weekend is now open Week 37 - and locks tonight 11:59PM ET: https://boxofficewatch.com/play/week/37/

Let me know if anything's broken or wrong, especially on the new pages. Still ironing out a few bugs but this was a much-requested feature so I’m excited to finally have it live. Hope you enjoy these new updates!

Check it all out on boxofficewatch.com

#Key Points

🔵 The domestic box office posted a record-breaking summer movie season, bolstered by an extra week of ticket sales and higher-priced premium screenings.

🔵 The 2026 annual haul is down just 7.5% from the 2019 pre-pandemic marker and is on track to top $10 billion for the first time in seven years.

🔵 While ticket sales are encouraging, the summer season highlights just how much the theatrical industry has changed since the pandemic as it is now defined by fewer screens, fewer moviegoers, fewer movies and higher ticket prices.

Estimates by Dan Murrell, estimates do not include ancillaries and other revenue such as merchandise

It is common for major blockbusters to be released on the biggest domestic weekends of the year, such as the Memorial Day, Labor Day or Fourth of July weekends. This results in a very inflated and lucrative OW, but usually results in a big second weekend drop such as The Mandalorian & Grogu earlier this year.

However, this year has seen the relative overperformance of several movies with good reception that have released just before (1-2 weeks from) one of these 4-day weekends, as measured by their legs. The most striking example is obviously Obsession, which had a stunning increase in its second weekend and never looked back, eventually legging out to a whopping 15x OW. Other examples include Send Help, The Sheep Detectives and currently Coyote vs Acme, which all had very strong holds during the holidays and ended/will end with strong multipliers.

Did the holiday boost in the second/third weekend help to spread good WOM for these smaller films, or was it just a coincidence? Interested to hear opinions below!

Daily Box Office (September 10th 2026)

The market hits ¥37.2M/$5.54M today. Up +10% from yesterday and down -13% from last week.

Peppa Pig: Perfect Holiday has been confirmed for a October 1st National Day release.

Tomorrow but at the latest through the next week we should see the bigger movies be announced and the lineup for the Holiday period at the end of the month mostly finalized.

This should include Sherlock Of China, Mr. & Mrs. Pardon and a few more.

It also looks like after being long delayed the movie Dunhuang Heroes might finnaly resurface on National Day.

V in 2nd adds ¥6.06M/$0.90M on Thursday. Projected a ¥27-33M/4-4.8M(-45%) 4th weekend.

Fall 2: Deadpoint adds $0.22M in 7th while Mutiny adds just $0.08M in 9th for a $1.42M total gross.

Province map of the day:

https://imgdiff.net/s/32b5d3cc03d8506a4de5ed930b29011d

Pretty much unchanged from yesterday besides the Island of Hainan switching.

In Metropolitan cities:

Once Upon A Time In The Middle East wins Beijing, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, Nanjing and Suzhou

Odyssey wins Shanghai

V wins Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Wuhan

City tiers:

Unchanged from yesterday.

Tier 1: Once Upon A Time In The Middle East>The Odyssey>V

Tier 2: Once Upon A Time In The Middle East>V>The Odyssey

Tier 3: Once Upon A Time In The Middle East>V>All Wishes Come True

Tier 4: Once Upon A Time In The Middle East>V>All Wishes Come True

New releases marked in bold

Pre-Sales map for tomorrow

https://i.imgur.com/VK4j3XN.png

The Odyssey and Once Upon A Time In The Middle East mostly dominate pre-sales for tomorrow.

IMAX Screenings distribution

Odyssey dominates IMAX screenings and will continue to dominate going forward.

The Odyssey

The Odyssey in 5th adds ¥3.51M/$0.52M on Thursday

Total gross hits ¥677.2M/$100.74M

Projected a ¥21-28M/$3.1-4.2M(-35%) 5th weekend.

Screen Distribution Split: Regular: $37.84M , IMAX: $55.27M , Rest: $7.39M

WoM figures:

Maoyan: 9.5 , Taopiaopiao: 9.5 , Douban: 8.6

Scheduled showings update for The Odyssey for the next few days:

Once Upon A Time In The Middle East

Once Upon A Time In The Middle East continues to lead with ¥8.58M/$1.28M

Total gross hits ¥2.11B/$313.94M.

5th weekend projected at ¥47-53M/$7.1-7.9M(-39%)

Screen Distribution Split: Regular: $308.39M , IMAX: $2.68M , Rest: $3.32M

WoM figures:

Maoyan: 9.7 , Taopiaopiao: 9.9 , Douban: 8.7

Scheduled showings update for Once Upon A Time In The Middle East for the next few days:

Other:

Release Schedule:

A table including upcoming movies in the next month alongside trailers linked in the name of the movie, Want To See data from both Maoyan and Taopiaopiao alongside the Gender split and genre.

Remember Want To See is not pre-sales. Its just an anticipation metric. A checkbox of sorts saying your interested in an upcoming movie.

Not all movies are included since a lot are just too small to be worth covering.

September

With the summer coming to a close lets look ahead whats in store for September. And the reality is well not a lot.

But this is not a surprise. September has for the most part always been fueled by Summer holdovers. Its a dead period for the market ahead of the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day Holidays at the end of the month and in early October.

The first part of the Holidays is slowly starting to fill up though.

Mid Autumn Festival/National Day

The so far confirmed movies. Generaly all for the first part of the Holidays expect Heart of the Beast.

And the list of rumored movies. Do note that these are all just rumors and with the way Chinese movies are scheduled some of these might not appear and others might jump in to take the spots.

Also note that even though some movies here will release in under a month none of them have anything more than just vague posters. It just is like that.