Hollywood Tried Originality for One Summer. Then a Seven-Year-Old Movie Walked Back In and Took the Crown
(SeaPRwire) – By: Christian Pierce
Hollywood spent the past few years in a quiet panic about its own business model. The pandemic rewired viewing habits. Streaming gutted the theatrical window. Marvel, the most reliable money machine of the 2010s, went cold after “Endgame,” with only “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “Deadpool & Wolverine” crossing $1 billion between 2020 and this summer. Last year, “Captain America: Brave New World,” “Thunderbolts*,” and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” grossed roughly $1.3 billion combined, less than half of what “Endgame” made alone. Then this summer arrived, and for a moment the obituary for franchise Hollywood looked premature in the opposite direction. Curry Barker’s “Obsession,” made for under $1 million, grossed more than $500 million worldwide. Twenty-year-old Kane Parsons turned his web series into “Backrooms,” A24’s biggest hit ever. Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” became a genuine cultural event. Meanwhile, “Masters of the Universe,” “Supergirl,” and “The Mandalorian and Grogu” all underperformed. Studio executives, briefly, talked about originality as if it were a strategy rather than an accident.
The facts now say otherwise, and they say it bluntly. “Toy Story 5” opened to $312 million globally, a franchise record, and finished above $1.14 billion. “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” posted a record $168 million opening day, held the top spot for six straight weekends, and has grossed about $2.5 billion worldwide, making it the biggest domestic release ever and the third-biggest film of all time globally. Then came the coup de grace. Disney and Marvel rereleased “Avengers: Endgame” on Sept. 25 as “Endgame Encore,” with a few extra minutes teasing December’s “Avengers: Doomsday” and an intro from Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans. It earned $86 million worldwide in its opening weekend, the third-best rerelease debut in history, and pushed the film’s lifetime total to $2.9255 billion, edging past “Avatar” at $2.9237 billion. A movie available on streaming for seven years outdrew every new release in its path. Box office analyst David A. Gross notes rereleases rarely top $10 million. This one is near $126 million globally.
Here is the commercial loop underneath the noise. The 2026 summer box office hit a record $4.76 billion domestically, nearly 10% ahead of 2019, and both camps fed it. Non-franchise titles like “The Odyssey,” “Michael,” “Project Hail Mary,” and “Obsession” all sit in the year’s worldwide top ten, with “Backrooms” and Pixar’s original “Hoppers” right behind. So this is not IP versus originality. It is something colder. The middle is dying. Audiences will show up for a $1 million word-of-mouth phenomenon and for a two-decade-old toy brand. They will not show up for a competent, expensive, vaguely familiar franchise entry with no event status. “Digger,” a big-budget Tom Cruise and Alejandro G. Iñárritu comedy, opened to $8 million this weekend. That is the real casualty profile. The endgame for studios is a barbell: micro-budget bets that can return 500 times their cost, and mega-IP events like “Doomsday” and “Dune: Part Three” that function as theatrical holidays. Everything between those poles is capital destruction dressed as a slate. Expect development budgets to migrate to the edges fast, and expect mid-budget producers to start updating their resumes before the December numbers land.
Author bio: Christian Pierce is a chief financial columnist and markets commentator who has covered media economics, studio balance sheets, and the theatrical exhibition business for two decades across major financial publications.