Friday, July 24, 2026

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is doing something almost no three-hour, R-rated epic manages: it is barely slowing down. The Homer adaptation, which opened to $123.5 million, logged the best Monday of 2026 so far ($18.7 million) and pushed its five-day domestic haul past $160 million, and trackers now think its second weekend could beat the second frames of Nolan's own Dark Knight films (via Deadline). With a 95% critics score, a 97% audience score and an "A" CinemaScore, word of mouth is doing the heavy lifting.

Broadway is muscling into the multiplex this weekend. Bleecker Street's filmed capture of Hadestown, the Tony-winning Anais Mitchell musical shot in London's West End with a stage cast, opens in roughly 1,977 theaters for a five-day run and is eyeing $8 million to $10 million. That would make it the second-biggest opening ever for a Broadway "proshot" (a professionally filmed stage production) behind Disney's Hamilton at $10.1 million (via Deadline).

The summer's biggest number is still a week away. Deadline reports Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the fourth Tom Holland outing swinging into theaters July 31, is tracking for a domestic opening north of $180 million, with first-day presales that topped any film in five years and pushed past $40 million (via Deadline). If it holds, that is the biggest debut of 2026 and the second-largest in the franchise behind 2021's No Way Home ($260.1 million).

DC's first horror movie just showed its face, and it is not pretty. DC Studios dropped the trailer for Clayface, a body-horror origin story for the shape-shifting Batman villain, with Tom Rhys Harries as a disfigured actor whose experimental cure slowly turns his body into living, reshaping clay (via Variety). Directed by James Watkins (the Speak No Evil remake) from a script by horror favorite Mike Flanagan, the Warner Bros release lands October 23 with Naomi Ackie, Eddie Marsan and Max Minghella, and stands as the first horror entry in James Gunn's rebooted DC Universe.

Johnny Depp crashed Comic-Con's Hall H in full Scrooge makeup to sell his next role. At San Diego Comic-Con, Ti West (the horror stylist behind X and Pearl) unveiled the first trailer for Ebenezer, a genuinely spooky spin on A Christmas Carol with Depp as the miser and the three ghosts played straight as figures of dread (via Variety). Ian McKellen, Daisy Ridley, Andrea Riseborough and Rupert Grint co-star, and Paramount opens it November 13.

The old gang is finally booking the job. George Clooney has confirmed Ocean's 14 will start shooting in October 2026, reuniting Danny Ocean's crew with Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, Don Cheadle and Andy Garcia now that Warner Bros has signed off on the budget (via Collider). Clooney says the sequel borrows from 1979's Going in Style, the idea being a crew too old to pull off what they used to but too smart to get caught.

Kneecap director Rich Peppiatt is assembling a knockout Irish ensemble. Deadline reports Colin Farrell, Steve Coogan, Domhnall Gleeson, Charlie Heaton and Himesh Patel have joined Bad Bridgets, a Netflix period thriller led by Emilia Jones and Alison Oliver about young Irish women pulled into the criminal underworld of 19th-century New York (via Deadline). Margot Robbie's LuckyChap is producing, with the shoot gearing up across Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Netflix just spent big to own Rupert Murdoch's origin story. The streamer has taken US and Latin American rights to Ink, Danny Boyle's drama about a young Murdoch launching The Sun into Britain's best-selling tabloid, adapted by James Graham from his hit stage play and starring Jack O'Connell, Guy Pearce and Claire Foy (via The Wrap). The deal closed just days before Ink opens the Venice Film Festival in competition on September 2.

Team Avatar is back, and this time Aang is all grown up. Paramount+ premieres the animated feature Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender worldwide on July 25, after the studio moved the date up (the whole film leaked online in April) and gave it a brief theatrical run in New York and Los Angeles first (via Variety). Eric Nam voices an older Aang, with Dave Bautista and Steven Yeun (as Fire Lord Zuko) rounding out the cast.

Fall's awards race has its opening act. The Venice Film Festival unveiled its 2026 lineup, opening September 2 with Danny Boyle's Ink and loading the competition with new work from Werner Herzog, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Lee Chang-dong and Martin McDonagh, while Maggie Gyllenhaal presides over the jury handing out the Golden Lion (via The Hollywood Reporter).

Toronto answered with a lineup thick with actors turned directors. TIFF (September 10 to 20) revealed galas and special presentations spanning nearly 30 countries, from Pedro Almodovar and Kore-eda to premieres directed by Chris Rock (Misty Green), Rebel Wilson and Courteney Cox, plus Peter Farrelly's dramatization of the making of Rocky, titled I Play Rocky (via IndieWire). The festival opens with Sian Heder's fact-based drama Being Heumann.

Hollywood is letting itself feel optimistic again. Forecasters project a $4.5 billion domestic summer from May through August, up roughly 24% on last year and the strongest since 2016, powered by hits like The Devil Wears Prada 2 (a $76.7 million opening) and now Nolan's Odyssey (via Variety). Studio chiefs are talking like it is 15 years ago, back when they believed they could win.

Behind the rebound, the theatrical window keeps stretching. Paramount boss David Ellison has committed to a 45-day exclusive window in theaters and a minimum of 30 movies a year, part of the pitch around the pending Paramount-Warner Bros merger that has left exhibitors both hopeful about longer runs and wary about one company controlling so much of the release calendar (via Variety).