Willem Dafoe Says Record-Breaking U.S. Box Office Should Be ‘Spread Out a Little Bit’: ‘The Audience Comes Mainly From Three Huge Movies’

The actor, who starred in Sam Raimi's 'Spider-Man,' also said he is grateful not 'to be haunted' by a 'mono-identity' attached to his character of Green Goblin

By Rafa Sales Ross

Rafa Sales Ross

Guest Contributor

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Willem Dafoe, who is at the Zurich Film Festival presenting the opening night film “Tenzing,” spoke about the record-breaking 2026 box office while emphasizing the importance of watching the Jennifer Peedom epic in cinemas. The film, which opened to warm Zurich audiences last night, will have a limited theatrical release in the U.S. from Oct. 9 ahead of its global streaming debut on Apple TV on Oct. 16.

“The only problem is that the audience comes mainly from three, four huge movies,” he said of this year’s record-breaking $4.76 billion U.S. summer box office, driven largely by Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” and Destin Daniel Cretton’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day.” “A couple of smaller movies kind of catch on and do well, but it’s got to be spread out a little bit.”

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