Maybe we have all been too hasty in declaring cinema dead and the box office over. The summer got off to a stuttering start with Masters Of The Universe and Supergirl sending shivers through analysts and boardrooms alike, but it seems like this season has turned it around.
Tracking firm Rentrak (via Deadline) is now saying that the summer box office is closing in on al all-time record. A three-day domestic box-office total of $88 million has taken the summer to $4.732 billion by the end of Sunday. This officially makes it the second-best summer ever as it stands.
However, and here is the cherry on top for some shareholders out there, the official end of the summer box office is the Labor Day holiday today. If the receipts go over about $25 million (and they are projected to), then the all-time record set in 2013 of $4.758 billion will fall, making what looked like a bust of a summer at the start into the biggest of all time, domestically.
The main drivers of this are, of course, Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey, backed up by various low-budget breakouts like Obsession and Backrooms.
Both of those big movies are powering relentlessly onwards at the box office. The Odyssey recaptured top spot internationally this weekend and added another $46 million globally to its total. Spider-Man added another $44.1 million worldwide.
Those totals are $1.627 billion for The Odyssey and $2.4 billion for Spider-Man. The Odyssey is now closing in on Jurassic World to become the top-grossing Universal movie of all time.
Spider-Man is about to edge out Star Wars: The Force Awakens to become the third highest-grossing movie of all time.
