Spider-Man, Dhurandhar 2, Chalamet’s opera row and more: 10 moments that shaped the year so far

Dubai: Cast your mind back to January. You were probably still writing 2025 on things, Border 2 was in every cinema, and the industry's biggest question was whether anyone would turn up at all.

They did. In numbers nobody predicted.

Two films rewrote their industries' record books, four months and a continent apart. Five films crossed a billion dollars, which last happened in 2019. There was a wedding in Udaipur, a summer that sent half of Indian cinema to hospital, and Timothée Chalamet upsetting all of ballet and opera community.

And the biggest releases are all still ahead of us.

Here is the rewind, before December goes and changes everything.

Brand New Day did not have a good opening. It had the biggest one in the history of the medium.

$360 million in North America over three days, past Avengers: Endgame's $357.1 million from 2019. $72 million from previews alone. $169.3 million on the Friday, the biggest single day ever recorded. $47 million on the Monday, also a record. Fastest to $400 million domestically, in four days.

Then a billion dollars worldwide in six days, second only to Endgame's five.

It managed all of it without IMAX screens in North America. Sony chairman Tom Rothman's reaction was as close to giddy as studio statements get. "Records are made to be broken, but we will take great pride in this one, for as long as we hold it."

Four months earlier, and just as comprehensively.

Dhurandhar: The Revenge has taken ₹1,149.16 crore net in India, according to Sacnilk, with roughly ₹1,851 crore worldwide. The next four biggest Hindi releases of the year add up to about ₹810 crore between them, meaning one film outearned the rest of the top five combined.

It set the biggest global opening ever for a Hindi film, $81 million across five days, beating Jawan's $63 million. It became the first Indian film past $25 million in North America, ending a record Baahubali 2 had held since 2017. It is the highest-grossing Indian film ever released in Germany.

Twelve weeks after release it was still on screens, having played across more than 527,000 shows worldwide.

Four films crossed a billion dollars by the start of August, with a fifth arriving within days.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie got there in June. Michael crossed in July and became the highest-grossing biopic ever made. Toy Story 5 joined on 26 July. Spider-Man took six days. The Odyssey is expected imminently.

In 2019, nine films managed it. In every year since the pandemic, no more than three had.

Summer grosses reached $3.579 billion domestically by early August, and the industry is now openly discussing whether 2026 becomes the first year since 2019 to clear $10 billion in North American ticket sales.

Eight years of speculation ended on 26 February at a heritage resort in Udaipur.

Rashmika Mandanna and Vijay Deverakonda, who first worked together on Geetha Govindam in 2018, married in a ceremony blending Telugu Vedic rituals with a Kodava ceremony honouring her Coorg heritage. A strict no-phone policy kept it genuinely private.

The couple named the event after the nickname their fans had given them. "You called us VIROSH," they wrote. "So today, with full hearts, we name our coming together in your honour."

A reception followed on 4 March at Taj Krishna in Hyderabad, at 8.30pm UAE time.

The Odyssey has taken around 61 per cent of its domestic gross from IMAX screens.

That proportion is extraordinary, and it explains why Sony had to open the biggest film in history without access to those screens. Nolan's three-week IMAX exclusivity was worth more to Universal than anything a competitor could pay for it.

Seventeen days in, the film had taken $395.5 million domestically. It held second place on the weekend Spider-Man opened, dropping only 43 per cent in its third weekend.

At some point in the summer this stopped looking like coincidence.

Rashmika Mandanna suffered a complete hip tendon detachment while filming a dance sequence, with doctors comparing the damage to what they usually see in professional athletes. Ram Charan had wrist surgery in Coimbatore after an injury on Peddi, his second operation connected to that film. Nandamuri Balakrishna, 66, tore his left quadriceps tendon during an action sequence and needed more than three hours of surgery.

Jr NTR was also on the injured list. Pawan Kalyan, now Andhra Pradesh's deputy chief minister, had shoulder surgery in Mumbai.

The industry began asking openly whether the physical demands of post-RRR filmmaking have outrun what bodies can take.

The most enjoyable row of the year, and it started with a throwaway line.

At a CNN and Variety town hall at the University of Texas at Austin on 24 February, Chalamet was talking with Matthew McConaughey about the effort to keep cinemas alive when he reached for a comparison which took a bad turn.

"I don't want to be working in ballet, or opera, or things where it's like, hey, keep this thing alive, even though like no one cares about this anymore," he said. "All respect to all the ballet and opera people out there."

He clocked it immediately. "I just lost 14 cents in viewership. I just took shots for no reason."

Within days it had become a referendum on whether classical art forms are dying and whether saying so is honesty or vandalism.

Chalamet said nothing at all. He carried on promoting Marty Supreme, appearing at its Beijing premiere on 10 March while the argument raged without him.

By the Oscars on 15 March it had followed him into the room.

Then he lost. Michael B. Jordan took Best Actor for Sinners, and Marty Supreme went zero for nine despite arriving with the most nominations of any film that night.

The internet decided the opera comments had cost him. They almost certainly did not. Final voting ran from 26 February to 5 March, closing before the backlash properly swelled, and his momentum had already reversed after Jordan's win at the Actor Awards. Chalamet had taken the Golden Globe and Critics' Choice earlier in the season and simply ran into a stronger campaign.

His co-star Kevin O'Leary had said as much on the carpet, in the most cheerfully unhelpful defence of the night. "He took a bum rap on that. By the way, he gave a lot of promo to opera houses and ballet."

Chalamet is now a four-time nominee without a win. He was, when the camera found him, applauding Jordan.

Yash's production with Geetu Mohandas moved from 19 March to 4 June to 26 August, with rumours of collapse following each move.

He addressed them at the trailer launch without much patience. "Every time a big film starts, there'll be news of it being shelved on the 10th day or 20th day," he said. "Making a film is like going to war against the whole world."

The numbers explained the delays. Two hundred shooting days across two years, with two complete versions shot in Kannada and English rather than dubbed.

Around it, the south kept out-producing the centre. Telugu delivered Mana Shankara Vara Prasad Garu at ₹257 crore and The RajaSaab at ₹171 crore. Tamil had Karuppu at ₹211 crore. Raja Shivaji cleared ₹111 crore across Marathi and Hindi, a notable figure for Marathi cinema.

Two of the biggest women in film spent the year negotiating visibility, and reached opposite conclusions.

Ariana Grande will step away from public-facing work once her Eternal Sunshine tour ends on 1 September. Her representative cited the endless, ongoing public scrutiny that comes with appearances, and she has also withdrawn from a West End Sondheim revival. Her album Petal has been described by a source close to her as an anthem about the love-hate relationship with the public.

Deepika Padukone went the other way. She announced a second pregnancy and carried on working through it, filming King in Cape Town with additional safety measures on set, skipping the Met Gala for the first time in years but staying visible on her own terms.

Cannes in May reinforced the point. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan walked the carpet with her daughter Aaradhya.

Alia Bhatt had three separate looks including a Tamara Ralph gown with a 168 carat pink necklace, and Indian designers took as much attention as the European houses.

None of the above is a verdict, because the calendar is loaded at the back end.

Toxic: 26 August 

Ramayana: Part 1: reported for 6 November 

Jumanji 3: 11 December 

Dune: Part Three: 17 December in the UAE 

Avengers: Doomsday: 17 or 18 December 

King: 24 December

Two of the most expensive films ever made open on the same day, Dune Part 3 and Doomsday, which almost never happens deliberately. Robert Downey Jr. and Timothée Chalamet have leaned in and suggested calling it Dunesday.

Then Shah Rukh Khan arrives a week later with his daughter's screen debut.