Getting out early with a projection for global box office in 2026, Gower Street Analytics is forecasting the upcoming year at $35 billion.
This would mark a second consecutive year of worldwide growth, +5% against current estimates for 2025.
“We predict 2026 will be the highest grossing global year since 2019 ($42.3 billion), topping the current high of 2023 ($33.9 billion),” said Gower Street’s Chief Analyst Thomas Beranek, who led the work on the 2026 projection. “Especially in the markets driven by Hollywood product we expect the most significant growth.”
At current exchange rates, the 2026 estimate would remain 12% behind the average of the last three pre-pandemic years (2017-2019).
For 2026, the domestic market is projected to finish 11% up on 2025 at approximately $9.9 billion. This is -14% against the 2017-2019 average.
The international box office (excluding China) is predicted to finish 5% ahead of 2025, at approximately $18 billion. This is -11% versus the 2017-2019 average at current exchange rates.
Regionally, the London-based firm breaks overseas down to EMEA at $10.05 billion (+7% vs 2025/-9% vs 2017-2019); Asia Pacific at $5.3 billion (even with the 2025 estimate/-15% compared to 2017-2019); and Latin America at $2.65 billion (+9% vs 2025/-5% vs 2017-2019).
Following a year of ups and downs which generated both the biggest local title of all time (Ne Zha 2) and the No. 2 import title ever (Zootopia 2), but which also suffered long periods of weaker performance, China is conservatively estimated at $7.1 billion (-4% vs 2025). However, due to the limited release calendar at this stage it remains the hardest market to predict.
Notes Rob Mitchell, Gower Street’s Director of Theatrical Insights, “There is an incredibly strong franchise-led release calendar for 2026 with new installments in massively popular film series including Avengers, Spider-Man, Toy Story, Dune, Star Wars, Super Mario Bros., Minions, Jumanji, Scream, The Fockers and Hunger Games. But there are also many potentially huge hits among non-sequels, including musical biopic Michael; the live action version of Moana; and new titles from legendary blockbuster directors Christopher Nolan (The Odyssey) and Steven Spielberg (Disclosure Day); among many others. Audiences will be spoilt for choice.”
“Our forecasting accuracy remains strong,” said Gower Street CEO Dimitrios Mitsinikos of the method used. “For 2024, our early forecast landed within 5% of the actual global year-end result, a year ahead of time. For 2025, we’re tracking toward a final global total within 2% of our original $33 billion forecast from 12 months ago.” Note that Gower also revised its 2025 estimate in April, to $34.1 billion and expects the year to land within that range.
Here’s a graph showing the 2017-2024 evolution, and the forecasts for 2025 and 2026.
The figures above are in U.S. dollars at historical exchange rates for years prior to 2025, and at current exchange rates for forecast years (2025-2026). Year-to-year comparisons within the text re-calculate previous years using current exchange rates for comparison. Gower also notes that it would expect to see further changes to the release calendar result in some fluctuation. There are also a number of untitled studio releases currently dated which, as more becomes known about these titles, could impact projections. The projection can also not account for unexpected global events.