Key takeaways from AP’s Summer Movie Preview

Hollywood’s summer movie season is shaping up to be epic.

There are superheroes, franchises and thrillers galore with many of the regulars on the lineup: “Spider-Man,” “Minions,” “Star Wars” and “Toy Story.” But the most eagerly anticipated is not a superhero, toy, or franchise: It’s one of the oldest stories in Western literature. Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of “The Odyssey” is sailing into theaters, on much smoother waters than Odysseus faced, on July 17.

The Associated Press spoke to over two dozen people involved in some of the summer’s biggest releases, from studio executives, to filmmakers, writers, actors and those who seem to do it all about their films and the industry. Here are some of the key takeaways from AP’s Summer Movie Preview.

“The Odyssey”

For Nolan, “The Odyssey” seemed like a foundational piece that deserved to be done on the biggest possible scale, with all the resources modern Hollywood had to offer.

“There’s a massive amount of pressure,” Nolan said. “Anyone taking on ‘The Odyssey’ is taking on the hopes and dreams of people for epic movies everywhere and that comes with a huge responsibility.”

It reminded him of working on the Batman films.

“What I learned from that experience is that what people want from a movie about a beloved story, a beloved set of characters, is they want a strong and sincere interpretation,” Nolan said. “They want to know that a filmmaker has gone to the mat for it. I really tried to make the best film possible.”

Three summers ago, “Oppenheimer” made nearly a billion dollars. “The Odyssey” has battles, gods, creatures and an army of movie stars — Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya and Tom Holland included. It’s also the first movie shot entirely on IMAX film. Tickets for some IMAX 70mm showings sold out in under an hour a full year in advance.

Other notable summer 2026 releases

Kicking off the season on May 1 is “The Devil Wears Prada 2," followed by “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” (May 22) bringing the franchise back to the big screen after seven years. Later, Steven Spielberg returns to sci-fi with “Disclosure Day” (June 12). There are superhero movies too, including “Supergirl” (June 26) and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” (July 31).

A lot of power recently has shifted to PG-rated offerings. This summer has “Toy Story 5” (June 19), “Minions & Monsters” (July 1), a live-action “Moana” (July 10) and “The Sheep Detectives” (May 8).

Horror fans can find franchises like “Evil Dead Burn” (July 10) and unnerving indies like “Leviticus” (June 19) and a new Jane Schoenbrun, “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” (Aug. 7).

There are smaller gems too, including Daniel Roher’s “Tuner” and Boots Riley’s colorful shoplifting movie “I Love Boosters,” (both May 22), Olivia Wilde’s chamber dramedy “The Invite” (June 26) and the wholesomely raunchy comedy “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass” (July 10).

What key figures of 2026 summer movies are saying

Christopher Nolan on ‘The Odyssey’ runtime: “One of the things that’s really important to me is to be showing the film wherever possible on IMAX film, projecting the format, because we shot the entire movie on IMAX film, and the longest we’ve ever been able to get onto the IMAX projector is three hours. So we know it’s less than three hours. I can say the film is shorter than ‘Oppenheimer.’ It’s still an epic, it’s an epic film as the subject matter demands, but it is shorter.”

James Cameron on the business rebounding: “Hope springs eternal … We still have a very robust theatrical industry at a time when it was kind of almost pronounced dead.”

DC co-chair and co-CEO Peter Safran on superhero films: “I never felt that there was superhero fatigue. I felt it was mediocre movie fatigue. You gotta try something new. You have to change the game a little bit. The essential story on which ‘Supergirl’ is based is something cool and original and we haven’t seen before.”

Jon Favreau on made for IMAX films: “People have got great TVs at home. You’ve got to give them a reason to go out.”

Olivia Wilde on taking risks: “I think one of the reasons that audiences really enjoy the films that A24 are investing in and putting out into world is they can tell that risk is sort of part of the process for them … there’s something exciting about that.”

Marlon Wayans on big screen comedies: “The world needs comedy. It’s a shame that there haven’t been more comedies in the past 15, 20 years. I think it’s really hurting our world … I hope people come out to the theater and they feel good.”

Why the summer movie season is so important

Hollywood doesn’t save all its blockbusters for the summer anymore, but the 18-week corridor running from the first weekend in May through Labor Day remains the industry’s most important, accounting for around 40% of the year’s box office.

And it’s only surpassed $4 billion once since the pandemic, in 2023 with “Barbenheimer.” Last summer capped out at just under $3.7 billion, led by Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch.” It was about the same in 2024, when Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” topped the charts.