The 10 Biggest Opening Weekends of 2026 So Far

Bea here. Marcus counts the money, I run the countdown, and this one's got a plot twist at the top: the biggest opening weekend of 2026 isn't just the biggest of the year. It's the biggest ever recorded. Ten films, ten Fridays (and one Wednesday), ranked by what they made before Monday. Marcus, they're yours.

The countdown

10. Scream 7 — $63,615,172 (opened Friday, February 27, in 3,540 theaters)

The year's floor is a slasher sequel clearing $63 million in February. That's not a soft month anymore. It's a launchpad with a mask on.

9. The Devil Wears Prada 2 — $76,747,075 (opened Friday, May 1, in 4,150 theaters)

Twenty years between installments, and the audience showed up like no time had passed. Nostalgia doesn't usually pay this fast. This time it did.

8. Project Hail Mary — $80,506,007 (opened Friday, March 20, in 4,007 theaters)

An original science-fiction film with no franchise number in its title opened above $80 million. That's the rarest line on this list.

7. Backrooms — $81,402,424 (opened Friday, May 29, in 3,442 theaters)

A24's biggest swing took $81 million in its first weekend from fewer theaters than anything above it here. Per room it averaged $23,649 — more per theater than the Star Wars film sitting directly above it on this list.

6. Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu — $81,670,433 (opened Friday, May 22, in 4,300 theaters)

A streaming-born Star Wars story moved to the big screen and opened like a mid-tier event film. Solid number. For this brand, solid reads like a warning.

5. Michael — $97,206,874 (opened Friday, April 24, in 3,955 theaters)

A music biopic opened within $3 million of nine figures. Music biopics aren't supposed to do that. This one did, and it kept going for months afterward.

4. The Odyssey — $123,502,900 (opened Friday, July 17, in 3,919 theaters)

A three-hour literary epic opened at $123 million in the middle of July. The opening wasn't even the story — it was 19.7% of what the film eventually made at home.

3. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie — $131,703,340 (opened Wednesday, April 1, in 4,252 theaters)

It opened on a Wednesday, so its first "weekend" had a head start, and it still lands third. Family audiences don't wait for Friday. They never have.

2. Toy Story 5 — $159,677,837 (opened Friday, June 19, in 4,425 theaters)

The year's second-biggest opening belongs to a franchise that started in 1995. It made more in three days than most 2026 films will make in their whole runs.

1. Spider-Man: Brand New Day — $360,091,572 (opened Friday, July 31, in 4,487 theaters)

The record. It passed Avengers: Endgame's $357,115,007 — a mark that stood for seven years — and it did it by $2,976,565, in one weekend, in July. Every theater in its count averaged $80,252. There isn't a second sentence that adds anything.

What the list actually says

Three of the top four are sequels to stories the audience already owned a piece of, and the fourth is an adaptation of a poem that's roughly 2,800 years old. The one true original in the top half, Project Hail Mary, sits at #8. Studios will read that the way they always read it.

The floor matters too. Tenth place is $63.6 million. In a weak year, that figure fights for fifth. In 2026, it's the price of admission to the table — and the year still has December to go.

That's the list, and yes, I checked the gap at the top twice: first place beat second place by $200,413,735, which is more than 200 films made all year. December gets its shot at this ranking in a few weeks — Avengers: Doomsday opens December 18, and Marcus is already sharpening the pencil. Until then, the crown's got webbing on it. — Bea

Every gross, date and theater count from Box Office Mojo's 2026 year chart and its all-time opening-weekends chart, both opened in full by this desk on Nov. 5, 2026.