Willem Dafoe looks at the record U.S. summer box office and sees a warning inside the celebration. His argument is simple: the total is enormous, but too much of it came from only a few enormous movies.
The numbers mostly support him. Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey dominated the season, while Toy Story 5 added another major studio hit. Yet 2026 also produced several profitable films below that top tier, so the summer was not carried by three titles alone.
What exactly did Willem Dafoe say?
Speaking at the Zurich Film Festival, where he presented Tenzing with Tom Hiddleston, Dafoe welcomed the record but questioned how it was built. He said audiences are mainly showing up for “three, four huge movies” and argued that theatrical success needs to be spread across more releases.
His concern is not that blockbusters are bad. It is that a healthy theatrical business cannot depend on a handful of films doing nearly everything. If the biggest release underperforms, there may not be enough smaller successes to cover the gap.
Which movies dominated the summer?
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is approaching $950 million in North America, while The Odyssey has passed $600 million domestically. Toy Story 5 is near $480 million. Their current totals include money earned after the traditional summer window, but the scale of the gap is still obvious: the year’s top films sit far above most of the chart.
Their rivalry has shaped the season. The Odyssey briefly took the global weekend lead back from Spider-Man, while Brand New Day reached $900 million domestically faster than any previous movie.
Is Dafoe right about the box office?
Broadly, yes. A small group of event movies generated a huge share of attention and ticket sales. The summer total reached about $4.759 billion, only a fraction above the previous unadjusted record from 2013. The 2026 season also ran seven days longer, and estimated admissions remained below pre-pandemic levels.
Ticket prices and premium screens help turn fewer admissions into more revenue, which makes the dollar record look healthier than moviegoing itself. A record can be real and still hide how hard it is for most releases to find an audience.
What does his argument leave out?
The middle of the chart was not empty. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Michael, Project Hail Mary, Obsession, and The Devil Wears Prada 2 all built sizable domestic totals. Horror, animation, music biopics, and adult dramas found paying audiences alongside the franchise giants.
Dafoe is raising the issue while promoting Tenzing, which opens in limited U.S. theaters on October 9 before reaching Apple TV on October 16. A film like that is exactly the type he wants audiences to support: a star-led drama that cannot rely on superhero-scale marketing. Do you think the record proves theaters are healthy, or that Hollywood is leaning too hard on its biggest brands?
