The latest box office news, headlines and analysis from The NE Times.
Minions & Monsters topped the US chart with $36.4m over Toy Story 5's $31m — a win with caveats in a tighter, more international summer box office.
Pixar's sequel took about $70m as Supergirl opened to roughly $38m, showing family animation's pull while superhero films must now earn trust film by film.
A $170m Supergirl opened soft while Toy Story 5 soared past $585m worldwide — a blunt lesson in audience trust for DC's rebooted universe.
Pixar's long-awaited fifth instalment took an estimated $160m in North America and $312m worldwide, the franchise's strongest-ever launch and the year's biggest opening so far.
The 79-year-old director's UFO thriller starring Emily Blunt and Colin Firth has handed Universal the summer's most encouraging original-movie launch, even as a soft CinemaScore raises questions about its long legs.
Focus Features' micro-budget chiller has done something almost no wide release ever manages: grown its audience weekend after weekend, smashing records and turning into the studio's highest-grossing film of all time.
Steven Spielberg's UFO thriller starring Emily Blunt debuted at number one in the United States, marking his strongest launch for an original film since 2018.
Illumination and Nintendo's animated sequel has cleared the $1bn mark worldwide, pushing the Mario film franchise past $2bn and cementing Universal's grip on family entertainment.
Travis Knight's long-gestating He-Man epic, starring Nicholas Galitzine and Jared Leto, has become one of 2026's most painful box office misfires, opening behind even infamous tentpole disasters.
Disney and Pixar's latest sequel is projected to deliver the franchise's biggest-ever debut and the largest opening of the year so far when it lands on 19 June.
Antoine Fuqua's Michael Jackson biopic has crossed roughly $912m worldwide to dethrone the 2018 Queen film, with a release in Japan tipping it toward the billion-dollar mark.
The Wayans-led horror spoof opened to roughly $55m in North America, handing Paramount its biggest comedy launch on record and outpacing Amazon MGM's costly Masters of the Universe.
Society of London Theatre data shows record footfall in 2025 even as average ticket prices held steady, with theatre outperforming football and cinema for audience growth.
Music and celebrity biopics may frustrate critics, but estate-approved versions of famous lives are proving increasingly useful to studios hunting reliable box office.