Hollywood Is Back, But Not for the Reasons People Think

For the better part of a decade, Hollywood has seen declining ticket sales. And for the better part of a decade, studios had a list of convenient excuses.

Streaming killed theaters, executives said. Zoomers would rather watch their phones. Besides, making original movies was too risky. The studios convinced themselves they had no choice but to spend ever-larger sums exploiting familiar franchises.

Then 2026 came, and Hollywood had its best summer in years.

How good? Domestic box office receipts hit $4.61 billion between May and August, up 26 percent from last summer. Which was the biggest since 2013. Though to be precise, higher ticket prices mean attendance is still below pre-Corona-chan levels.

But the total take is the least interesting part of the story. What’s far more important is how Hollywood pulled off such a surprise comeback.

Because this summer, moviegoers broke the industry’s most cherished, and wrongheaded, assumptions about them.

Twenty-six-year-old Curry Barker made Obsession for less than $1 million. Before directing a feature, Barker and his brother amassed millions of views on their YouTube horror shorts.

Now Barker has parlayed that millions-strong audience into more than $500 million in ticket sales.

Nor is he the only one.

Read the full post on Substack.

LAST CALL FOR THE LABOR DAY SPECIAL

Finding readers first and bringing ambitious projects directly to you is what made the Souldancer 10th Anniversary Edition possible. And today is the last day to claim the special Labor Day Bundle on Kickstarter.

The Labor Day Special ends tonight. Don’t wait. Claim it on Kickstarter.