Box Office Set to Be the Best Since 2019
It’s official. Bar an upset of unprecedented proportions, this year’s box office is set to be the best we’ve seen since before COVID upended the industry. While it isn’t anticipated to topple 2019 itself, that’s still a remarkable improvement and a milestone well worth celebrating. Brandon Blake of Blake & Wang P.A., ranked among the top entertainment law firms Los Angeles studios and creators rely on, has all the good news to share.
Best Since Pre-COVID
Gower Street Analytics, widely seen as the box office authority, has now revised its 2026 annual global ticket sales forecast up to $35.7B, almost a full 3% higher than was reported at CinemaCon in April this year. That’s a sharp increase, given there’s only one quarter of the year left, but an excellent sign for both cinemas and the wider industry.
If the global box office hits that benchmark, we would be looking at a 6.3% increase on last year, which already represented the long-coveted “return to normal” that the industry has been looking for.
While it’s still a way off from 2019’s $42.3B, it would also close the gap considerably. As we’ve explored before, it may be time for the industry to let go of pre-streaming-boom benchmarks for the box office and celebrate the new alliance with streaming that is emerging, anyway.
By the Numbers
Breaking that $35.7B figure down further, they anticipate:
- $10.5B from North America
- $19.7B from non-Chinese international markets
- $5.5B from China itself
This would be an 18% jump for domestic takings over last year, and almost 14% for the non-Chinese international markets. The Chinese projection is 26% lower than last year, but that is understandable.
Last year saw the explosive dominance of Ne Zha 2, for one thing, which cannot be expected every year. While horror has had a commendable heyday among Chinese moviegoers this year, admissions and ticket prices have been far softer, despite welcoming a few more Hollywood movies than we’ve seen recently.
No matter how you look at it, however, this has been a remarkable year for Hollywood, both at home and internationally. We’ve seen five titles take home more than $1B, namely Spider-Man: Brand New Day ($2.5B), The Odyssey ($1.8B), Toy Story 5 ($ 1.1 B), Michael ($1B) and the Super Mario Galaxy Movie ($1B).
Alongside those powerhouses, we saw indie breakouts in Obsession ($525M) and Backrooms ($400.6M), while China’s Pegasus 3 took almost $654M, with some other strong performers right behind it. In fact, this year has been packed full of milestones, including a record summer box office boom for North America that closed at $4.76B.
With a strong festive season slate still ahead of us, including both (anticipated) high-performing tentpoles and family fare alongside some indies with fantastic potential, this is shaping up to be a bumper year. While we aren’t quite back at those coveted 2019 figures, there’s a lot to be proud of and, more importantly, all signs now point to a full box office recovery despite the added pressures of the streaming era.