NABO June and Q2 Report - 2026 maintains it's momentum for a post pandemic record year

This post refers to pre pandemic norms (PPN), this is a baseline I use to evaluate box office performance. it is calculated as the average box office takings from 2017-19 for any given month. It allows me to compare different months (which traditionally see different levels of business) directly.

May Report

Jun total Box Office - $1,064m (91.5% of PPN)

May In Month releases - $1,027m (108.8% of PPN and counting)

Q2 Total Box Office - $2,970m (95.7% of PPN)

The end of June felt slightly muted thanks to the relative underperformance of Disclosure Day and Supergirl and the hope that Toy Story 5 could have had a record opening, it's therefore important to point out that Jun 26 has been another really strong month, it's the biggest June since 2019 and it's final PPN of 91.5% is a really healthy total.

Toy Story 5 is obviously the star on the month $319m, after 12 days it's pacing well ahead of Toy Story 4 and will probably end up as Pixar's 4th biggest film. After that the best other performers was the marvels from May; Obsession and Backrooms, which both contributed over $100m in the month. Scary Movie 6 was Jun's other good news story outperforming forecasts to also breach $100m.

The bad news is that all of June's other big releases have underperformed. Disclosure Day and Masters of the Universe were both muted against forecasts and Supergirl has unfortunately bombed, similarly A24s The Death of Robin Hood completely failed to garner any attention and has sunk without a trace. That's the cautionary tale, that without the huge performance of Obsession and Backrooms, two suprise hits from May, then Jun would have actually been a disappointing month. On the other side it's worth mentioning the World Cup is ongoing in North America and, especially with all three hosts still in, that may be having a negative effect on the Box office.

In far better news we have to look at Q2, whilst it fell just short of $3b it's the second quarter in a row to break a post pandemic record and was the fifth biggest Q2 in history. In another sign of the diverse health of the NABO Q2 2026 had 5 different films make over $200m and that's only ever happened once before, in 2018.

Looking ahead to July and we have a bit of a coin toss for what to expect, The Odyssey looks to be another smash hit for Nolan and smaller releases like Young Washington and Evil Dead Burn are tracking to make healthy contributions but two family juggernauts, Moana and the Minions, are tracking well below what was hoped of them. My forecast sits at $1,130 for the month which translates to 92% of PPN which would be fine but, hopefully, Moana and the Minions can beat their tracking to push the month closer to 100%.