The summer box office came to its official close last week with a record that had stood for 13 years finally falling. Venice crowned its 2026 Golden Lion winner in a ceremony that was headlined by a record-setting surprise. Supergirl converted its disappointing theatrical run into an inclusive and impressive streaming performance.
Summer Box Office and The Odyssey Sets New Record as Spider-Man Nears History
When domestic ticket sales from May 1 through Labor Day on September 7 were tallied by Rentrak, the number landed at $4.765 billion. At that number, this year’s haul beat the previous all-time summer record of $4.756 billion set in 2013.
The 13-year-old record had been built on Iron Man 3, Despicable Me 2, and Man of Steel. This year was built on something considerably more varied: IPs, animation, horror, creator-driven indie cinema, and two films that are still rewriting records as the season ends.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day earned $923.5 million across the summer and $8.4 million over this weekend, putting its domestic total at $935.2 million. Its current earnings put it $1.4 million short of the box office total for the current placeholder, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The 2015 installment of Lucasfilm’s franchise holds the position with $936.6 million.
Based on weekday performance, Star Wars’ record is expected to fall within days. Globally, Spider-Man now stands at $2.4 billion, placing it third on the all-time worldwide chart behind only Avatar and Avengers: Endgame.
After seven straight weekends at number one, it finally ceded the top spot this week to Practical Magic 2 which opened to $30 million domestically and $16 million internationally for a $46 million global debut against a $75 million budget.
Behind Spider-Man at the weekend box office, The Odyssey added another milestone to its run. Last week the film became Universal Pictures’ highest-grossing release of all time with a global total of $1.684 billion, surpassing 2015’s Jurassic World. That also makes it Christopher Nolan’s highest-earning film ever, eclipsing The Dark Knight Rises. It ranks second for the year, behind Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Venice Closes With a Golden Lion and a Record Ovation
The 83rd Venice International Film Festival closed on Saturday with its awards ceremony. The jury led by Maggie Gyllenhaal gave the Golden Lion for Best Film to May el-Toukhy’s Woman Unknown. El-Toukhy’s submission is a post-World War II Danish drama in which a maid’s wartime relationship with a German soldier threatens to unravel the new life she is trying to build.
As the only woman directing a film in the main competition, El-Toukhy addressed the chronic lack of equal opportunities for female filmmakers in the industry during her acceptance speech.
Woman Unknown completed a double by taking the Volpi Cup for Best Actress through its lead, Mathilde Arcel. In a result that confirmed early predictions, the Best Actor prize went to John Malkovich for Wild Horse Nine. Due to Malkovich’s absence from the ceremony, he accepted his prize via a pre-recorded video. During his speech, the actor thanked McDonagh for a screenplay he said gave him a once-in-a-career role.
The other major prizes went to Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love, which won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize. Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s Soviet-era epic DAU, which took the Silver Lion for Best Director; Yuval Abraham and Rachel A its documentary NAZA, received the Special Jury Prize. NAZA was a late addition to the competition but its Thursday premiere generated a 25-minute standing ovation which is the longest in the festival’s recorded history.
The film is built on testimony from 24 anonymous Israeli military officers and examines the targeting systems and protocols they allege Israel used to kill Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The Audience Award went to Alina Şerban’s “I Matter” and it is scheduled for a window release in February 2027.
Supergirl Finds the Audience It Missed in Cinemas
Supergirl arrived on HBO Max on Thursday, approximately eleven weeks after its June 26 theatrical debut. The early streaming numbers told a different story from the box office one.
According to FlixPatrol, the film reached second on the platform’s most-watched list worldwide and landed at number one in 23 individual countries. The theatrical run had ended at $126.4 million globally against a production budget of between $170 and $186 million. Its underwhelming total landed the film between $44 and $60 million which is below what the film cost to make before marketing.
Arriving alongside the standard release on the same day was an American Sign Language (ASL) version of the film. The interpretation of Milly Alcock’s Supergirl adventures was performed by Catalene Sacchetti and directed by Jonaz McMillan, who previously worked on The Pitt with ASL.
For a film adapted from Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, which tracks Kara Zor-El and a young alien companion across an interstellar revenge journey. The ASL release marks a significant and largely unheralded first undertaking for high-profile comic book adaptations. Milly Alcock is set to return as Kara in Man of Tomorrow in July 2027.
