
L-R: Matthew Tinker, Annakate Chappell and Azazel Jacobs
Getty/ennifer Gluck/Courtesy
Last year, the hopes of a fruitful summer box office free from the shackles of the pandemic or Hollywood strikes were dashed, as a handful of underperforming films kept the domestic total flat from the prior year at $3.6 billion.
But with a lineup filled with a higher quantity of films, highly anticipated franchise titles and top films from Hollywood’s most acclaimed directors, there are high expectations that this will be the best summer for theaters since before the pandemic, surpassing the $4.03 billion grossed during the “Barbenheimer” summer of 2023.
In fact, box office analysis site The Numbers predicted that the domestic total for the summer period, which lasts from the first Friday of May to Labor Day, could top $4.2 billion, a mark that the box office cleared in four out of five summers between 2015 and 2019.

But in order to get there, the summer box office must not only avoid suffering multiple flops like last year, where high profile films like Pixar’s “Elio” and Blumhouse’s “M3GAN 2.0” misfired, but its recent trend of supporting multiple tentpoles at once must continue.
The box office has kept that trend going in the start of the year. Despite facing significant competition from “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” Amazon MGM’s “Project Hail Mary” has legged out superbly, passing $300 million domestic and $600 million worldwide this past weekend. And even with “Michael” hitting theaters, it maintained a screen count of more than 3,500 in its sixth weekend, becoming the first film since “Deadpool & Wolverine” in September 2024 to do so.
In a theatrical market that will be more crowded than the past two years, that’s the kind of carrying capacity theaters will be hoping for. If “Michael” holds well in the coming weeks while “The Devil Wears Prada 2” opens and legs out strong and “Mortal Kombat II” finds its own lane with a predominantly male gamer audience, that will be a big sign that the only thing stopping Hollywood from getting back to a $4 billion summer is consistent quality.

That said, don’t be surprised if the season kicks off with a May that can only, at best, match last year’s total. Remember that Memorial Day weekend 2025 set a new record for the summer holiday before inflation adjustment thanks to Disney’s remake of “Lilo & Stitch” and Paramount’s franchise finale “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.”
Memorial Day weekend this year simply isn’t equipped to match that. Disney’s 2026 entry, Lucasfilm’s “The Mandalorian & Grogu,” is tracking decently but is currently expected to only do somewhat better than the $103 million four-day opening/$213.7 million domestic total of the “Star Wars” 2018 bust “Solo” and nowhere near the $182 million opening/$423 million domestic total of “Lilo & Stitch.”
Beyond that film, the holiday releases are headlined by the Paramount horror film “Passenger” and Neon and Boots Riley’s anticapitalist satire “I Love Boosters,” both of which will likely contribute less than $50 million domestically.
“We’re predicting $1.1 billion will be earned by movies released in May, which is exactly the same as last year,” said Bruce Nash, founder of The Numbers and Nash Information Systems. “‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ could help kick-start things, but we’d need something very surprisingly, like ‘The Sheep Detectives’ or ‘Mortal Kombat II’ really breaking out beyond their core audiences, to make it feel like we’re having a runaway successful summer as early as May.”

June is where business could seriously pick up. On their own, the trio of Amazon MGM’s “Masters of the Universe,” Paramount’s “Scary Movie 6” and Fathom/Glitch’s YouTube sensation “The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act” may not be heavy lifters. But those are three films targeted at very distinct age demographics that could combine for a strong start to the month.
And in the middle of the month, the summer’s first major contender for top-grossing movie of the year will arrive: Disney/Pixar’s “Toy Story 5.” It was two years ago that Pixar set a then-animation record of nearly $1.7 billion worldwide with “Inside Out 2” from a mid-June release slot. Considering that “Toy Story 4” grossed $434 million domestic and $1.07 billion worldwide, “Toy Story 5” may not get as far at the box office as Joy and Anxiety did two years ago but should get loads of turnout from millennials who grew up watching Pixar’s flagship franchise and now have kids of their own.
Then there are the wild cards, starting with Universal/Amblin’s “Disclosure Day.” For older moviegoers and hardcore cinephiles, the words “sci-fi alien thriller directed by Steven Spielberg” will be enough to sell them on a ticket. But consider that since Spielberg’s 2011 film “The Adventures of Tintin” grossed $374 million worldwide, only one of the eight movies he has released has made more: 2018’s bestseller adaptation “Ready Player One” with $607.8 million worldwide.
Can Spielberg be the box office force he once was? “Disclosure Day” is one of two auteur-driven offerings Universal is bringing to theaters this summer, and whether it breaks out will likely come down to post-release word-of-mouth as its deliberately cryptic marketing campaign will likely hamper its pre-release buzz, especially among younger moviegoers who don’t have fond childhood memories of seeing films like “E.T.” and “Jurassic Park” in theaters.
The other big wild card is “Supergirl,” the second film in James Gunn’s rebooted DC Universe after the respectable launch of “Superman” last year. That film was able to take advantage of strong word-of-mouth and nostalgia among older moviegoers who saw the original “Superman” in the 1970s. But at a time when comic book films aren’t as consistent as they once were, will moviegoers buy into a new version of a superhero that has only been seen in a panned 1984 film and as a supporting character in the 2023 bomb “The Flash”?

July will be a month defined by Universal. On the lucrative Fourth of July weekend, Illumination’s “Minions & Monsters” will look to bring back the “Gentleminions” trend from 2022 and match the $370 million domestic, $940 million global total of “Minions: The Rise of Gru.”
Then, on July 17, Christopher Nolan will bring “The Odyssey,” a film that sold out opening night Imax 70mm screenings a year ago. After Nolan turned “Oppenheimer,” a three-hour film about the making of the atomic bomb, into a $975 million global hit, he proved that his drawing power as a filmmaker is beyond question or compare. Now, as he takes on the sword and sandals genre with his adaptation of Homer’s millennia-old epic, the Oscar-winning director could have his first non-Batman $1 billion-plus grosser.
Of course, Universal’s not the only one bringing heavyweights. Disney has yet another live-action remake in July with “Moana,” as Dwayne Johnson will play Maui once more. Like “Lilo & Stitch,” “Moana” is already getting trashed on social media with its trailers. But Twitter isn’t real life, and there’s little reason to believe that a remake of a film that became a pandemic streaming hit and gave rise to a $1 billion monster sequel in 2024 won’t be another smash.
As for the surprises, keep an eye out for Angel’s “Young Washington” on Fourth of July weekend. It’s been three years since Angel broke out with its big indie hit “Sound of Freedom,” and the studio is hoping to bring in a predominantly conservative audience excited for America 250 with a biopic about the start of George Washington’s rise from British soldier to revolutionary general.

The August box office will largely be defined by Sony/Marvel’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” which should be another contender for $1 billion worldwide even if it doesn’t reach the immense $1.9 billion total of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” back in 2021. But Nash believes that there are some films that might stand out in the final weeks of the season.
“I have my eye on [Warner Bros.’] ‘The End of Oak Street’, which we’re already predicting will make around $70 million, and [Ketchup Entertainment’s] ‘Coyote vs. Acme,’” he said. “Our prediction is fairly modest for the latter, partly because of its history, but I think it’s a smart back-to-school release. We have it earning $42 million, which would still be a good result.”
As the summer season kicks off, the domestic box office total stands at $2.55 billion, on par with the year-to-date pace of 2023 and 12.5% ahead of last year. That gap will likely narrow after Memorial Day weekend, but should increase not long after that.
Thanks to a strong spring, there is significant optimism that the final domestic total for the year will pass $10 billion. But as we saw last year, it only takes a few underperformers for the forecast to change. We will find out soon whether Hollywood brings its best and provides a summer more reminiscent of pre-COVID days gone by.
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Keke Palmer and Raven-Symoné are taking Hollywood to task for failing child actors.
While talking on Raven’s podcast with wife Miranda Maday, titled “Tea Time,” Palmer tore into Hollywood for abandoning child actors once they age out of the industry.
“That’s what they do to child entertainers. That’s what people don’t understand – ‘why so-and-so went crazy,’” Palmer said. “First of all, I don’t believe people go crazy. I don’t. I don’t believe it’s just like that. Child entertainers – you have to understand, people say, ‘You are a has-been.’ Your life hasn’t even begun. You’ve done all of this stuff, and you’ve created all you’ve done. You’ve done years and years of work, and then people have decided you’re done just because you got older.”
Raven, who was a child star herself, having starred on “The Cosby Show,” “That’s So Raven” and the Disney Channel Original Movie “The Cheetah Girls,” agreed with Palmer. She said it should come as no surprise that so many former child stars act out once they reach a certain age.
“And then they wonder why we act the way we – I say we very clearly,” Raven said. “We get old. So, you’re saying that I’m only useful in this life when I’m younger and making you money and making you laugh? The rest of my life doesn’t matter to you?”
The pair’s conversation comes in the wake of Hayden Panettiere’s death. The actress was a major star in her youth – appearing in things like “Remember the Titans” and NBC’s “Heroes.” When news of her death hit, plenty were quick to call out the Hollywood system and how people did not do enough for Panettiere or those like her.
“I’ll miss you. I’m so sorry you suffered,” Jack Coleman, who played Panettiere’s father on “Heroes,” wrote. “I’ll remember how happy you were on set and on the European press tour; how you championed Tess when she was being bullied; your commitment to animal welfare and the courage to put yourself in harm’s way to protect them. I only wish you had been given that same protection.”
Palmer did think that with the continued rise of content creators, there was a signal of how things could be better. Now that so many more are having their lives out there from an early age, she hopes people will offer more care for child stars as they grow.
“Everybody’s online and being perceived like we were being perceived as kids, and you know, it was only a certain avenue you could go to be looked at publicly like that,” Palmer said. “Now you can be a YouTube family, and they could know you when you came out the womb. So more people are actually having the same experience that we’ve had in different scales, in different niches, or worldwide.”
She added: “I think it lets people say, ‘Well, hey, wait a minute. There’s something we’re not talking about here.’ I think that’s something we’ve had a lot of experience with.”
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A federal judge heard arguments on Thursday in the latest challenge to the Trump-controlled Kennedy Center‘s effort to install the president’s name on the complex, this time twice on its facade and once to designate the grounds for him.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, however, stopped the center’s lawyer from bringing up the “dilapidated” condition of the center, referring to it as a “non sequitur” to the issue at hand: Whether the board can return Trump’s name to prominent locations at the complex.
Earlier this month, the Kennedy Center board voted to add “Renovated and Restored by President Donald J. Trump” to the front facade below the inscription, “The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” Once a $100 million threshold is met for an endowment, another inscription would be placed below that one to read, “Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund.”
The board also voted to rename “the physical site and grounds upon which the center sits” as the “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”
Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), an ex officio member of the board, is seeking a court order to stop the naming, as her attorneys argued that it violates a statute and the judge’s previous order. After the center’s board voted to add Trump’s name to the center, rebranding it as the Trump Kennedy Center, Beatty sued, arguing that only Congress could change the name of the complex, as it was designated as a memorial to President John F. Kennedy in 1964. Cooper agreed, and issued a preliminary injunction in June that forced the center to revert to the original name and remove lettering on the front facade of the complex.
At the hearing, DOJ attorney Brantley Mayers, representing the center, argued that the latest plans for recognizing Trump are not a “renaming.” He also contended that it did not violate a congressional law in 1983 that restricted any other memorials at the complex. He noted that the board’s resolution “was quite clear that it wanted to recognize” Trump’s “ongoing contributions,” as memorials recognize something that happened in the past.
But Cooper noted that the planned inscriptions are written in past tense.
Earlier this week, in a court filing, the center’s attorneys warned that if Trump’s name wasn’t returned to the center, it would jeopardize its future, even pointing to the potential need for demolition.
The judge declined to go into those arguments, stopping Mayers as he started to talk of the condition of the complex.
“That is all fine and good, but what does that have to do with what Congress intended?” the judge asked. He later said that nothing in his earlier order prevented the center from proceeding with renovations, with Congress allocating more than $250 million for repairs as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Nathaniel Zelinsky, one of Beatty’s attorneys, said that the name change plans were an “outright defiance” of the judge’s injunction and an act of “massive bad faith.” He argued returning Trump’s name to the complex amounted to a rebranding, while Congress also intended the grounds and land the center sits on to solely honor Kennedy. He pointed to a past proposal, ultimately never realized, to construct a Kennedy Plaza on the grounds, saying that it was “another indication Congress didn’t intend name [the complex] for anyone other than Kennedy.”
Mayers, though, argued that Congress did not prevent the board from designating areas of the center for certain individuals. When Cooper asked if that meant the board could recognize Barack Obama or George W. Bush at certain parts of the complex, like a garage, Mayers agreed.
Beatty sat with her attorneys during the hearing. Also there was Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, whose wife, Allison, is among the board members. During a brief break to address an audio issue, Lutnick huddled with DOJ lawyers.
The judge raised some jurisdictional concerns over ruling on Beatty’s emergency motion as Trump is appealing. He did not indicate exactly when he would rule, but pressed Mayers on the deadline of Sept. 8. The center has committed to refraining from installing Trump’s name until that date, but not after. Mayers said that the timing was the board’s decision.
The judge also sounded weary that he was being asked to render a ruling so quickly, during a high time for summer vacation.
In his May ruling, the judge also barred the center from embarking on a two-year closure for the renovations, concluding that the board failed to consider options and the full impact. In the meeting this month, the board considered options presented by a consultant, and against moved to shutter almost all of the complex. The judge’s injunction, though, remains in effect.
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EXCLUSIVE: In March 2005, one freshman ABC drama, David E. Kelley‘s Boston Legal, wrapped its season in the Sunday 10 PM slot to make room for another rookie, Grey’s Anatomy starring Ellen Pompeo, which launched in the time period a week later.
Twenty one years after that handover, Pompeo and Kelley have come together for a new drama project, Not a Sound, in which Pompeo, known for her role as Dr. Meredith Grey on Grey’s Anatomy, will play another medical professional. It has been set up at Hulu for development through 20th Television where the Kelley was once based for 22 years and where Pompeo is under an overall deal.
Not a Sound is written by David E. Kelley Productions President Matthew Tinker and Annakate Chappell — who worked together as writers on Kelley’s Big Sky –– based on Heather Gudenkauf’s novel of the same name, with Azazel Jacobs (His Three Daughters) set to direct.
In it, after losing her hearing in a devastating hit-and-run, disgraced ER nurse Amelia Winn (Pompeo) and her fiercely loyal service dog discover the murdered body of a former colleague — pulling Amelia into a deadly mystery that could finally reveal the truth about the accident that changed her life.
Chappell executive produces alongside Jacobs and David E. Kelley Prods.’ Kelley and Tinker and Calamity Jane’s Pompeo and Laura Holstein. 20th Television is the studio.

L-R: Matthew Tinker, Annakate Chappell and Azazel Jacobs
Getty/ennifer Gluck/Courtesy
Pompeo recently received two green lights from Hulu, for a second season of anthology series Good American Family, which she is executive producing, and dramedy pilot Chicks, which she is starring in and executive produces. She is partnered on both with Katie Robbins.
Additionally, Pompeo stars in and executive produces ABC’s venerable medical drama Grey’s Anatomy, which is headed into its 23rd season. She also executive produced spinoff series Station 19 and is an executive producer on the upcoming Grey’s offshoot set in West Texas, which will premiere in midseason 2027. Pompeo is repped by CAA, Linden Entertainment and Hansen Jacobson.
Tinker oversees David E. Kelley Prods.’ slate across film, television, and new media. He executive produces for the company the upcoming second seasons of Apple TV’s Presumed Innocent and Margo’s Got Money Troubles as well as the new Netflix series Myron Bolitar. As a writer, he worked on Kelley’s ABC drama series Big Sky, which 20th TV co-produced with A+E Studios, alongside Chappell. Tinker is repped by CAA and Yorn, Levine, Barnes.
Chappell is a supervising producer on CBS’ hit drama series Tracker and is writing the feature Bingo, with Robin Wright attached to direct and star. She is repped by CAA, Echo Lake and Yorn, Levine, Barnes.
Jacobs’ 2024 Netflix film His Three Daughters earned him a Gotham Award and Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay. In television, Jacobs served as co-writer and executive producer on Doll & Em for Sky/HBO and directed both seasons. He is repped by CAA, manager Stuart Manishil at Novo, and attorney Jerry Dasti.
Gudenkauf was repped in the deal by Lucy Stille at Lucy Stille Literary on behalf of Marianne Merola at Brandt & Hochman Literary agents.
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