This summer's box office grossed over $4.6 billion, 25% over 2025. That increase was due not only to the tentpole films, like 'Spider-Man' and 'The Odyssey ', but also to small-budget movies.
Films like 'Obsession' with a $750,000 cost amassed a worldwide gross of $500 million. 'Backrooms', with a $10 million budget, grossed close to $400 million. These movies were promoted to a young audience who use entertainment options besides the cinema. 'Scary Movie', the sixth in the franchise, grossed $221 million on a budget of $30 million
Previous summers have seen low-budget films make it big: 'Blair Witch Project' and 'Napoleon Dynamite' come to mind, but this summer's successes reflected a new way of marketing and content distribution.
The box office has not only shown resilience, but per-screen gross is up dramatically. From a pre-COVID top of almost 6,100 screens in the U.S. to just over 5,200 today.
It now appears that movies of all sizes and budgets can make bank.
