I spent a good part of last week wading through press releases telling me what an extraordinary summer the movie business just had.
Record summer box office. Record August. Record premium-format revenue. Record concession sales. Best attendance since 2019. Highest-grossing summer in company history.
After a while, you begin to suspect the word “record” is being handed out with the popcorn.
The thing is, this time the superlatives are hard to argue with.
North American summer box office reached roughly USD $4.76 billion, narrowly surpassing the previous nominal record set in 2013. There are caveats, of course. Ticket prices are higher, the measurement period was longer and nobody should confuse revenue with admissions. But while one record can be dismissed as an anomaly, a pattern repeated around the world is harder to ignore.
Cinemas in the United Kingdom and Ireland recorded their highest-grossing summer ever, with the year-to-date box office actually edging ahead of the comparable point in 2019. France posted an all-time August admissions record of 19.94 million tickets, while July and August combined for 37.5 million admissions, matching the country’s best summer on record.
The corporate announcements told much the same story. Cinemark reported its highest domestic summer box office ever. Marcus Theatres posted records for summer revenue, box office and concessions while recording its strongest summer attendance since 2019. IMAX generated USD $728 million worldwide during the season, 73% above its previous summer record. Regal celebrated its own record-breaking summer by launching a Rewards Week designed to turn some of that momentum into repeat visits.
In other words, this was not simply one unusually large North American number inflated by higher ticket prices. Across territories, circuits and premium formats, audiences showed up.
Which made the conversation unfolding in France at the Lumière Summit last week rather fascinating.
While exhibitors and studios were celebrating one of the strongest summers in years, more than 200 industry leaders, creators and public officials from over 65 countries gathered in Saint-Paul-de-Vence for the inaugural Lumière Summit to discuss what sounded, at times, like an existential threat to the very business having such a good summer.
Kicking off the event, French President Emmanuel Macron warned about artificial intelligence, piracy, cultural sovereignty, discoverability and an attention economy built around keeping us scrolling from one thing to the next. His argument was essentially that we have never had access to more images, yet risk actually seeing less because so much of what competes for our attention is designed to hold us for seconds rather than move us for hours.
The resulting Lumière Declaration called for protecting intellectual property, supporting independent cinemas, improving image education and preserving theatrical exhibition. Among the initiatives announced was IRIS, the International Resilience Initiative for Independent Screens.
It would be easy to see a contradiction here. How can cinema be breaking records while some of its most influential leaders are gathering to warn that its future needs protecting?
It turns out, quite easily, actually.
A terrific summer does not mean the industry’s structural problems have disappeared. It does not solve uneven release schedules, low auditorium utilization during weaker periods, piracy, changing viewing habits or the challenge of competing for attention against an effectively infinite supply of content.
But neither should those problems obscure what this summer demonstrated. For several years the exhibition business has repeatedly been asked some version of the same question: Will audiences still go to the movies?
Perhaps we should accept that audiences have already provided the answer.
They went for “Spider-Man: Brand New Day.” They went for “The Odyssey.” They went for “Toy Story 5.” They went in France, Britain, Australia, Portugal, Korea and North America. They paid extra for premium formats. They spent at the concession stand, with several circuits reporting record revenues. And when there were enough films worth seeing, they did it repeatedly. Kind of like they did in 2013, when roughly 120 films reached 2,000 or more theatres.
That does not mean every movie works. It does not mean every theatre or cinema chain is healthy. And it certainly does not mean the industry can simply (or easily) repeat summer 2026 forever. What it does suggest is that moviegoing itself may not be the problem we sometimes make it out to be.
The more difficult question is whether the industry can consistently create, distribute, market and program enough compelling films—along with other worthwhile content—to keep those audiences coming back throughout the year. There is a reason success begets success: every satisfying trip to the cinema makes the next one an easier sell.
That is where the optimism of this summer and the warnings from Lumière actually meet.
The industry should celebrate the records. The industry should celebrate the records. It earned them — and certainly waited long enough for them. It should also take seriously the work still to be done. The good news is that this summer proved the audience is still there, while Lumière showed that much of the industry is at least willing to sit in the same room and wrestle with what comes next. A winning season hasn’t solved the business model. But it has given the industry something worth building on.
Lumière Summit Puts Theatrical Exhibition on Global Cinema Agenda
The inaugural Lumière Summit in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, brought together more than 200 film, television and gaming executives, creators and public officials from more than 65 countries on September 7 to consider how the moving-image industries should respond to challenges ranging from artificial intelligence and the attention economy to piracy, discoverability and changing audience behavior. Co-chaired by French President Emmanuel Macron and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, the gathering culminated in a 15-point Lumière Declaration endorsed by more than 120 signatories.
For cinema operators, some of the most consequential language was unusually direct. The Declaration states that “sustaining theatrical exhibition is a shared interest across the sector,” arguing that diverse films need cinemas to thrive just as cinemas require a diverse supply of films. Exhibition was also strongly represented: UNIC says operators attending the Summit collectively represented around 80% of worldwide cinema admissions.
Among the Summit’s more concrete initiatives was IRIS, the International Resilience Initiative for Independent Screens, designed to provide financing, expertise and advocacy for independent cinemas worldwide. IRIS aims to raise EUR €30 million, allowing it to deploy EUR €10 million annually over its first three years, with France contributing EUR €1 million per year. Macron also announced a five-year EUR €1 billion France-Korea Lumière Partnership to support the wider moving-image sector and cultural sovereignty.
The Summit generated no shortage of lofty declarations, and some attendees questioned how much of its ambitious agenda will ultimately translate into lasting action. Screen Daily reported that private meetings frequently drew delegates away from panels and that some participants wondered whether the Lumière Declaration would still be remembered a decade from now. For exhibitors, however, putting theatrical cinema explicitly into a global declaration about the future of the moving image is significant. The more important test will be whether initiatives such as IRIS — and the commitments surrounding them — produce measurable results after everyone has left the South of France.
Source: La Maison Élysée
Netflix Will Begin Reporting Box Office Grosses for Six Theatrical Releases
Netflix will publicly report box office grosses for six upcoming films, a notable change for a company that has historically declined to disclose theatrical revenue even when releasing movies in cinemas.
The titles include “La Bola Negra,” David Fincher’s “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth,” Peter Berg’s “Mosquito Bowl,” Danny Boyle’s “Ink,” Greta Gerwig’s “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” and the animated “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Several will also receive substantially longer theatrical runs than Netflix has traditionally offered.
The shift comes as Netflix enters a more mature phase of its streaming business. After years of rapid subscriber growth, the company has been looking increasingly to advertising, live events, games and other businesses for additional growth. It stopped reporting quarterly subscriber numbers in 2025, and Wall Street has become considerably less forgiving: Netflix shares have fallen roughly 37% over the past year amid concerns about how the company will sustain its expansion.
That context makes the decision to report box office more interesting. Netflix produces dozens of films each year but can selectively give theatrical releases to titles it believes have the strongest commercial prospects. Successful grosses from a carefully chosen handful of movies would therefore provide not only incremental revenue, but another positive performance metric for investors at a time when the company is under pressure to demonstrate new avenues of growth.
There is an obvious selection bias in that strategy: Netflix gets to choose which films go to cinemas and which theatrical results it asks the market to judge. And strong box office does not necessarily translate into a higher share price. Still, longer theatrical windows combined with publicly disclosed grosses make these releases look considerably more like conventional theatrical engagements — while giving Netflix a new revenue stream and, potentially, a useful new success story for Wall Street.
Source: Variety
Regal, IFTA and CNC Will Test Whether Better Programming Can Boost Cinema Attendance
Regal Cinemas, the Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA) and France’s CNC are launching a “Future of Distribution” pilot aimed at testing whether underused cinema capacity can be filled through more flexible programming. The initiative was among a series of projects announced during the Lumière Summit in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France.
Under the pilot, participating Regal cinemas will make a portion of otherwise underused screens and showtimes available to an independent programmer whose mandate will be to increase attendance. That programmer will be able to select from a broad range of content, including wide releases, independent films, documentaries, repertory titles and special events. Existing theatrical windows and release dates are to remain intact, participation will be voluntary, and performance data will be shared among participants.
The premise is intriguing. According to the initiative, North American cinema attendance fell to roughly 770 million admissions in 2025, about 37% below 2019, while the number of screens remained relatively stable and average auditorium occupancy ranged from just 11% to 15%. The pilot will test whether some of that unused capacity can generate incremental admissions through different programming rather than simply waiting for additional wide releases.
Like a number of initiatives unveiled at the Lumière Summit, however, considerably more has been said about the ambition than the execution. The announcement does not identify participating Regal locations or markets, the independent programmer, how titles will be booked or promoted, or precisely how incremental attendance will be measured. The pilot is expected to begin in selected markets in late 2026, with initial results released in mid-2027. That makes this an experiment worth watching rather than a model ready to be judged. If it demonstrates that programming can meaningfully improve utilization of otherwise empty screens and showtimes, the implications could extend well beyond Regal.
Source: Lumière Summit
The Met: Live in HD Marks 20 Years as Event Cinema’s Original Blockbuster
Long before event cinema became an established part of theatre programming, the Metropolitan Opera was proving that audiences would buy tickets to cinemas for something other than movies.
“The Met: Live in HD” celebrates its 20th anniversary this season with eight live transmissions, three encore presentations and a special retrospective hosted by soprano Renée Fleming. Since launching in December 2006, the series has sold more than 33 million tickets and expanded to more than 2,200 screens in over 70 countries across six continents.
The scale of that growth is striking. The inaugural transmission, Julie Taymor’s production of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” was shown in just 56 cinemas in four countries. Within four years the network had expanded to roughly 1,500 theatres in 46 countries, demonstrating remarkably early that live cultural programming could attract a meaningful global cinema audience. Today, “The Met: Live in HD” remains something of the OG of modern event cinema: predictable programming, premium-priced tickets, a loyal audience and content capable of filling auditoriums outside the traditional movie slate.
This season also highlights another asset the Met has built over two decades. The three encore screenings and 20th-anniversary presentation draw on more than 185 Live in HD performances, allowing the organization to return proven productions to cinemas without mounting a new live transmission each time. That flexibility is particularly useful as the Met continues to face financial pressure and reduce costs across the organization.
The anniversary season begins 19 September with “Twenty Years of the Met in Cinemas: An Anniversary Celebration,” followed by the first live transmission, Mozart’s “Così fan tutte,” on 3 October. The season continues through Wagner’s “Parsifal” on 5 June 2027.
Source: Celluloid Junkie
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