The North American summer box office is on track to cross $4 billion by Monday, according to Rentrak data, marking only the second time since the Covid pandemic that the season has hit this milestone and the 14th time in box office history. As of 9 August, the summer tally (running from 1 May) stood at $3.985 billion, just $14.8 million short of the threshold, driven by strong turnouts for tentpole releases and unexpected hits from online-native filmmakers.

Five films account for roughly $2 billion, or half of the summer total: Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Toy Story 5 and The Odyssey contributed a combined $1.58 billion, while YouTube creators Curry Barker and Kane Parsons saw their films The Obsession and The Backrooms take in $460.7 million between them. The current summer trails the all-time record of $4.755 billion set in 2013, when Iron Man 3 and Despicable Me 2 led the charge, and the $4.095 billion recorded in 2023. This past weekend brought in $205 million overall, the third-best of the year, with hopes now resting on the mid-August release of dinosaur film The End of Oak Street to keep the momentum going.