MediaTalk | Season 4 | Ep. 6 - 2026 Box Office Outlook: Streaming-Theatrical Battle Just Heating Up

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MediaTalk - Box office 2026-20260210_140416-Meeting Recording 

Mike Reynolds: Hi, I'm Mike Reynolds, the senior reporter covering the media industry for S&P Global Market Intelligence, Tech, Media and Telecom news team. Welcome to "MediaTalk," a podcast hosted by S&P Global. Our news and research staff explore issues in the ever‑evolving media landscape. Today we're back with our Hollywood guys, S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan Senior research analyst Wade Holden, who specialize in the box office of the movie business is here. How you doing today, Wade?  

Wade Holden: I'm doing well. Thank you.  

Mike Reynolds: All right. Mac Matthews, an associate director of editorial design and publishing and a film aficionado, is also in our virtual screening room. Mac. How's it going for you?  

Mac Mathews: Good. Ice is thawing outside. Let's go.  

Mike Reynolds: Okay. Alright. This is going to be a busy one, guys. A lot of ground to cover 2025 box office. Overall, how the industry is doing through the first five or six weeks of 2026 is the latest remake of Weathering Heights. Going to be gigantic at the box office. A quick look at some of the Oscar categories and just so we all wind up on the same page maybe a peek at a few of the big pictures that we can expect to see in May, June. 

And July anyway. Wade, let's start with 2025 numbers overall we're talking US box office here. How did 2025 map out versus 2024?  

Wade Holden: Yes. So i'd like to say it was a tumultuous year, I think is the best way to describe. 2025 weekly box office grew in the 16 of the first 26 weeks of the year. And by week 26, total box office was up 16.5%. Then during the second half of the year, there was only growth in eight of the final 26 weeks. So 2025 ended up just 1.5% ahead of 2024, $8.7 billion versus $8.57 billion in 2024 and was down 5% from the $9.16 billion in 2023, which has been the best year for the box office since the pandemic. 

Mike Reynolds: I gotcha. Mac, your assessment of ‘25 and ‘24 and ‘23, which benefited from that phenomenon called Barbenheimer.  

Mac Mathews: Yeah, Barbenheimer -- it was a huge event and we haven't seen that exactly, but it has ushered in a kind of a new era as much as the the years proceeding Barbie you had the pandemic, but before that you had this dominance by Marvel where it seemed like that was what was really happening. That was the the big story with the box office for so long, just year after year. And now you aren't seeing movie going quite at the levels you've seen before, but you're seeing interesting stuff come out competing to try and fill that void. 

Not that Marvel's gone away but they've taken a little break for this year. Their next one isn't coming out until December, 2026, so we'll have almost a full year to see what springs up in its wake. Yeah, we've we've seen the numbers not quite as high, but there's still a lot of activity and you're seeing bigger horror releases. 

You're seeing Warner Brothers. Getting out there, with some real success with sinners. This winter the Housemaid was a moderately budgeted a thriller movie that was geared towards women and it's done really well. So you're seeing interesting stuff come out and potentially paving the way for more success. 

Mike Reynolds: When we spoke last in November guys, we talked about, the yearend rush of significant films. Mac, can you talk about the Wicked sequel and Zootopia 2, if you would.  

Mac Mathews: Yeah. Zootopia 2 came out. On Thanksgiving weekend, and it is still playing at theaters right down the street. It's going strong. It's in its first run still after about 11 or 12 weeks. And that's just such a runaway success story. It makes you question some of the prevailing wisdom about theatrical windows and how short they've become when you have success stories that people continue to go see in significant numbers after weeks and weeks. 

I'm not saying that every movie would get that kind of fan base if it were out in theaters longer, but it just complicates the narrative saying that some movies just keep going. This is a movie about a bunny and I just think about the Energizer Bunny. And with Wicked 2, it didn't quite reach the heights of the prior installment, but I don't think people necessarily. Thought it would. That part of the movie just didn't have the songs that the first side has.  

Mike Reynolds: Yeah. It's interesting. Again, I think that, maybe the first one, did you know a lot better than anticipated this one? 

There was a lot more hype and a year to sit through and, oh, it still did. Okay. Just not what I think. Some thought it was going to be Wade, did you think Wicked 2 was going to measure up 

Wade Holden: I thought it might be probably a little more comparable than it ended up being. 

Mike Reynolds: Okay.  

Wade Holden: So that was a bit of a surprise. And I just wanted to jump in quick to say about Zootopia 2. One of the big and important things. With regard to that film is , it actually got a release in China where it earned like over $600 million just in China. 

Yeah, like international box office, like $1.39 billion for Wow. Zootopia 2. So it's a gigantic hit. And and it just goes to show the importance of that market. If a Hollywood film can get in there and succeed,  

Mac Mathews: Yeah. And it, it proves that there's still an appetite. There's two variables here. 

There's whether the movie gets released in China and whether people show up there. And this one had everything working in its favor.  

Mike Reynolds: Alright. Wait, what about the third avatar? That's still in some theaters now too, right?  

Wade Holden: Yeah. By any film standard it's doing well. 

But it has underperformed compared to the prior two. As of the eighth of February 2026, it's earned $391.5 million domestically. And $1.05 billion internationally. So that's a combined $1.44 billion worldwide. But that's significantly short of the $2.92 billion for the first wow avatar and the $2.32 billion for the way of water. Yeah, it's not quite up to the level that of its predecessors.  

Mike Reynolds: Having said that, there's four and five I think are supposedly in the pipeline for 2029 and 2031. I don't know what that means.  

Wade Holden: James Cameron has not officially confirmed that they're happening, but he clearly has plans. His idea is that. Four and five will be its own two-part story to complete the whole series. But he's also spoken about how he needs to bring the cost of the films down in order for that to happen. Fire and Ash cost $400 million to make and reportedly another $150 million to market it worldwide. 

It's $550 million out of the gate right before it's even earned a box office dollar. Yeah it's likely that they will happen. 'Cause, still $1.44 billion , in worldwide box office is nothing to sniff at. And, when you take out the theaters cut, it should still have made that money back and then some.  

Mac Mathews: And it was a quick turnaround between part two and three. And so just by default they haven't started filming four and five yet, so you'll have more downtime, which seems to serve the Avatar movies well, to give people a break. 

Mike Reynolds: Alright. With the third avatar as we all expected Warner Brothers led the box office most of the year and then finished up with Avatar on the Disney side. And What's that guys, a five-peat? Five years in a row they topped the box office? 

Wade Holden: Yeah, I believe so. Yeah.  

Mike Reynolds: Speaking of Warner Bros., I guess it's up for sale. Netflix is interested. Paramount Skydance made another offer . It's been back and forth. It's already been before a Senate committee. Will it get then or not? We will see. But one of the interesting things that are going on here is that Netflix Co-CEO, Ted Sarandos has waffled a bit on his thoughts about the movie business. Initially when their bid was announced, okay, we're going to play the same Netflix games, we're going to have it in the theater for seven days. We'll get our nominations at all. Then he backed off and talked about going the full 45 days, then he went to 17 days, and then the last I checked, he's, yes, we will go the full 45 days. Any sense, guys? Mac why wouldn't you want to be in the 45-day movie business? As you just described for Zootopia, sometimes these films have more legs than anybody would think.  

Mac Mathews: Yeah it's interesting because from Netflix's perspective the theatrical , has been a rival for them. They were, they've put movies out with very limited windows just to get them in, enough theater time to get them in the qualify for awards. But they haven't embraced the theatrical strategy and in their way they're positioning themselves as being the alternative to theaters saying at home is the way. 

But with them buying Warner Bros. they would either be getting into theatrical or taking a lot of the wind out of theatrical sails and really just removing a lot of product that could have been for theatrical. So they've had to confront this question of what they really think about it. 

They've operated in the shadow of or along the side theatrical. But now buying a company like this, it's really making them put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, on whether they are a competitor to theatrical or if it's part of their strategy. What's interesting is that theatrical continues to have a hold on the artistic community on creatives, 

in terms of what constitutes making great films people think oh, if it's going to the theaters, that's a company putting their weight behind a product that they really believe in. Whereas streaming this Isn't always the case, but it's sometimes thought as for the stuff that. 

Isn't worth theatrical. You also have this idea of what it means to the people who make movies and consume them for them to be theatrical or. Or streaming releases.  

Mike Reynolds: Yeah, if Christopher Nolan wants to make a movie, and I'm sure he wants it to be on a big screen another big director says, yeah, I've got this project, I've been thinking about it for half a dozen years now. 

We want to make it. Netflix isn't going to be in the theatrical business, they're not going to get to work with these high profile people.  

Wade Holden: Yeah, I think that's possibly the case for sure. Like you said, there are a number of adamant creatives in the industry who. 

Think that movie theaters is the optimum experience for watching their films and would be hesitant to partner with Netflix on their projects. And it's just, if Netflix does acquire Warner Brothers, they're going to have, the notable franchises like Godzilla, king Kong, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and the DC comics films. 

It's just, it seems difficult. They need to be…  

Mike Reynolds: They need to be on big screens. 

Wade Holden: Yeah. It's difficult envision Netflix just saying no. We spent $200 million to make this movie, but we're just throwing it on Netflix and it that it's not going to get a standard theatrical release when, the type of return that those kinds of movies can give you if they hit big. 

And it's strange. And, going back to what Max said, like there's something. Intangible about the experience of watching a film in a theater and , that shared experience in the dark room with a bunch of strangers and you're all going through , the same story and the same emotions. 

It's just something no matter how big your TV screen is at home, I don't think you can ever capture that. It's impossible to recreate that. 

Mike Reynolds: Maybe not at Ted Sarandos' house. anyway. Yeah, maybe I apologize. I apologize.  

Wade Holden: No. There is an income bracket that day can very much probably recreate that, but for the bulk of the populace, that is not the case. 

Mac Mathews: Yeah. A great example of this dynamic can be seen with a movie that just came out two weeks ago called Iron Lung. It was made by a YouTuber. He self financed it  

And distributed it himself. I think he put $3 million into it. And it's done well at the box office, but this is a guy who has 40 million subscribers on YouTube. 

He is a dominant force. He's made it, he's made it on the small screen, on the smallest screen. People watch him on their phones. And so why does he feel the need to get into theatrical? It's not an economic proposition. It's what Wade was saying with the intangible. 

He wanted to make something and have a bunch of people see it all together on a huge screen with great sound, all sharing that moment together. That is a driving force behind this artistic decision he made. And that's still going to be in the air. Whether the box office isn't quite what it was two years ago or five years ago. 

If you have creatives out there and they grew up going to the movies themselves and. Tomorrow's creatives are still growing up, going to the movies. They may not go as often, but a lot of them are still going a couple times a year. And those are the movies they'll remember and those will probably the movies that will inspire them. 

So there's still something to be said for theaters.  

Mike Reynolds: Okay. Alright. We're going to stand in theaters here so far, in 2026. Wade industries off to a pretty good start.  

Wade Holden: Yeah, pretty strong through the first five weeks. Maybe total box offices up. 13.5% to $766.6 million. You still trailing behind 2023 in that regard. 

But there's a lot of stuff on the slate there's a real good chance that we will be able to finally best that 2023 number.  

Mike Reynolds: Lemme catch. Mac, we mentioned Zootopia and Avatar. They're still out there. What about some of the films that were released in the current year in 2026? 

Mac Mathews: Yeah. We haven't seen too many movies take off send help. The new Sam Raey movie is out and doing all Right for itself. But we've seen some false starts and january tends to be a time of the year where projects that kinda get dumped into that month , that weren't maybe testing well with audiences but so far this year, you've seen the movies that ended last year strong, just have a lot of runway to keep going. The House made avatars, utopia, Marty Supreme, it's been doing well. Yeah. Any in particular so far this year that you wanted to touch on?  

Mike Reynolds: You had mentioned your iron lung. 

That seems to be off to a pretty good start. I think maybe the latest Jason Stratham film opened only at five and a half million, so I don't think that's particularly good.  

Mac Mathews: Yeah, that one I didn't see a lot of marketing for that one. I've been wondering about the marketing landscape right now for some of these movies. I think that you've seen some movies have really clever digital marketing campaigns that have hit their target really well and been able to keep costs really low on a marketing front. 

You've had some horror movies where , the the marketing budget has been tiny, but it seems like every person who saw it got out there to see the movie. So I think we're at a point right now where it's tricky to get that right and replicate that. 

And yeah, I just didn't see anything about the Jason Statham, the movie shelter or about there's a new movie coming out called Crime 1 0 1. 

Wade Holden: I just, I don't wanna say I'm a Jason Statham fan. I enjoyed Shelter. My wife and I were there Saturday of opening weekends oh,  

Mac Mathews: nice. 

Mike Reynolds: Oh, good. Okay, great.  

Wade Holden: Okay. If you like a Jason Statham film, it's going to deliver 'cause it's what he does. Just,  

Mac Mathews: yeah.  

Wade Holden: Beat people up. It's awesome. It was great. Great cart chases, great fighting, yeah, it was a good time. So anyway,  

Mac Mathews: I enjoyed The Beekeeper a couple years ago.  

Mike Reynolds: So I know what you guys think about “Wuthering Heights.” Margo Robbie's obviously who she is. Is this going to be big?  

Wade Holden: I think there's some heat for that one. I think I've seen some early projections of somewhere between $30 million and $40 million for it. I know when the teaser trailer came out that caused quite an internet stir. 

Mike Reynolds: Another film that came out this year the documentaries caught some stirs in different political circles, “Melania,” about President Trump's wife the 20 days before his second inauguration. $7 million for a documentary is pretty good, Wade? 

Wade Holden: Yeah. It's a great opening weekend for a documentary. Historically, those types of films don't pull in big box office numbers. Like the average domestic gross for a documentary is usually under $1 million. So the fact that this did $7 million, sure it's great if you look at it just, on the basis of it's a documentary and it made $7 million, and most documentaries don't, but you also have to account for the $40 million acquisition price tag from Amazon, and the report is $35 million in advertising to market the film. 

Mike Reynolds: And it also benefited from being a news item, so to speak.  

Wade Holden: Yeah. There's lots of conversations around it. And I don't think it's going to be in theaters very long. It's second weekend, it earned just $2.4 million just for the Friday to Sunday period. And that's a 67% drop off of that $7.2 million for the first weekend. So total box office after 10 days is $13.3 million. They're still in a very big loss — a black hole of loss — when you talk about what Amazon spent to acquire and market it. 

Mike Reynolds: I guess some of us will get to watch it on Prime Video, so there’s that.  

Wade Holden: Yeah, I think the strategy the whole time was that — just a limited release, like two, three weeks in theaters or whatever. Create a stir, create a buzz, and then it's going to show up, on Prime and maybe Amazon's hoping that's where a lot of the curious eyeballs will come from. Because like I said, traditionally people don't generally go to theaters to watch documentaries.  

Mike Reynolds: I gotcha. Alright. I like to talk about music. There's evidently an Elvis film capturing one of his residencies in Vegas. I can't imagine a lot of people are going to go see that. On the other hand, Mac there is a biopic about Michael Jackson. It was supposed to have been released last fall. It didn't happen. Your thoughts about that one and how it might resonate. 

Mac Mathews: I would think if you look at the popularity of the songs and the clarity of the marketing people know what they're getting. And that just what other biopics have done about musicians on the scale, it should be a pretty big hit for this year.  

Mike Reynolds: All right. Could the biggest hit of this year be on April 1st? No. Fooling with Super Mario Galaxy movie. Wade, your thoughts on that?  

Wade Holden: Yeah. Absolutely. There's no reason to think that it might not be the biggest film of the air. 

The first film earned a ton of money. And animated films have, very broad appeal. So yeah there's a really good chance that the Mario Brothers could end up being the top film of the year.  

Mike Reynolds: You think so too, Mac?  

Mac Mathews: Yeah. It'll be exciting. These second movies can really do well if they're timed right. This one's coming pretty quickly after the first, in the scheme of things, it's not like the break between avatar 1 and 2 or the break between Zootopia 1 and 2 or the break between inside Out 1 and 2, where you've really seen the second movie go bananas. 

But but yeah, the first one was huge. So yeah it's definitely a leading contender.  

Mike Reynolds: Alright. A lot of horror on the horizon. Scream seven Neve Campbell is back this time as Sidney Prescott is protecting her daughter from Ghost Faith. Courtney Cox is back there seventh time as Gail Weathers still rolling. Lucky seven here, Wade.  

Wade Holden: Yeah, I think it's going to be a pretty good performer. The last film made over a hundred million domestically, and it did have Neve Campbell and now you know that the buzz, there's the buzz that neve Campbell's characters coming back, so I'm sure that's definitely going to to generate some interest. 

Mike Reynolds: There's the brides, another Frankenstein films coming out. From a women's viewpoint, Maggie Gyllenhal, directs Penelope Cruz is in it. Annette Benning Christian Bale is Dr. Frankenstein. We still have interest guys in more Frankenstein?  

Mac Mathews: I want see it.  

Mike Reynolds: Okay. 

Wade Holden: I think it looks cool. It's probably a sacrilege to say it, but that is probably one I'll check out at home.  

Mike Reynolds: Okay. Alright. Okay.  

Wade Holden: I don't, it just, I don't know. I don't know if I could convince anyone else to go with me. 

Mike Reynolds: Alright speaking of home, Netflix version of Frankenstein last fall is nominated for Best Picture. I'm just going to go through a list here of the contenders, there is F1, the Formula One race, Frankenstein, Hamnet. There's Marty Supreme from A24. There's a Secret Agent from Neon. There's sentimental value also from Neon. There's the Sinners, which you know, obviously, is the most nominated film I think of all time. I think there's 16 nominations. There's Train Dreams from Netflix. And guys any thoughts here? Again, is there a favorite in your mind or something that you favor among this group?  

Mac Mathews: There's a lot of momentum for One battle after another. 

Mike Reynolds: Okay.  

Mac Mathews: There's Timothy Chalamet in a Marty Supreme he's already gotten an award or two for that. And yeah, he would be on the younger side for, oscar for best actor. But he's been in the conversation for a while now. 

And then sinners with all of those nominations, you expect them to, come out on top in a few categories. Yeah I think it's very much still a contender for best picture. Those are my initial thoughts or my thoughts as of now. What about you, Wade?  

Wade Holden: I don't particularly have one over the other. I think what's good , about the Academy Awards is that you get maybe some of these smaller films that get recognized and it draws some attention and sometimes they'll get a re-release in theaters for people to check out. And, oftentimes I think it drives people to check it out and get some eyeballs on it that way and get some more conversation around it. So that's one of the nice things about when of these smaller films get nominated for such a big award.  

Mike Reynolds: Yeah, that makes sense. The Oscars this year, the Ides of March 15th starting at 7:00 PM Eastern from Doby Theater in la. 

Conan O'Brien is hosting for the second straight year with the award ceremony. We're going to be live on ABC and Hulu. And so guys, we'll get into the end here. Before we sign off, if we can take a look at maybe a couple of the summer films, at least those starting in May. I'm just going to rattle off a few and then you guys can weigh in. 

Devil Wears Prada 2 — Streep, Hathaway. Emily's back in it, as is Stanley Tucci. Mortal Kombat 2. Instead of going to a fourth film or fourth series rather, there's going to be the Mandalorian & Grogu from Disney. There's Supergirl there's Toy Story 5. There is. Disclosure Day from Steven Spielberg with Emily Blunt on June 2nd. It was advertised during the Super Bowl. It. Those are some that have caught my attention. I guess there's a He-Man coming back into the mix. There's Minions 3. 

That's a lot. Wade, what did I miss? What are you thinking? 

Wade Holden: As someone who's read hundreds and hundreds of comic book issues, I'm very excited for Spider-Man: Brand New Day.  

Mike Reynolds: Okay.  

Wade Holden: I'm very much looking forward to that film and where they take Peter's character after the way the last film left off. 

Mike Reynolds: Okay. And Tom Holland is also in Christopher Nolan's telling of Homer's Odyssey and Matt Damon is Odysseus. So Mac your thoughts about that film, is that something that you are interested in?  

Mac Mathews: Yeah I'll definitely be seeing that one. I am very curious to see how well it does. There's some interesting stuff. It's not your typical Christopher Nolan movie and it's a retelling of just such an old-school, Hollywood type of movie. And this is going back to filling in some of the spots in the slate where you'd count on a Marvel movie to be the biggest thing of the year. Now we've got some others vying for that spot. You've also got a movie coming out a little bit earlier in the year Project Hail Mary with Ryan Gosling. That's a big space adventure movie. And you have Steven Spielberg getting back into making a big-budget, alien-centric blockbuster for a summer release. He hasn't done this in a while, and you have to wonder if he saw that superhero movies aren't quite the dominant force. There's just some room, there's a bit more room now for other creatives to jump in and try and put their art out there and have a big place in the conversation. So it spurred Steven Spielberg to get off the sidelines. I'm excited to see how it does.  

Wade Holden: Another interesting thing for coming out for this summer is the live action adaptation of Moana, right? Is it going to be Snow White or is it going to be Lilo and Stitch? Because those were the two adaptations that came out from Disney last year. And Snow White was a disappointment as far as what it earned domestically where Lilo and Stitch was one of the higher grossing films of the summer, 

Mike Reynolds: Yeah, those are on opposite ends of the fiscal ballroom there, so to speak. 

Wade Holden: Yeah, so it's just going to be interesting to see if audiences are still on board with Disney's live action adaptations and if they can keep that train rolling or if they're going to have to regroup and reconsider their strategy. 

Moana two obviously did very well. So there's no reason to think that the live action adaptation of the first film won't do well. So it will be interesting if it doesn't, I, it probably will, but if it for some reason doesn't click and connect it's going to be interesting to see how Disney responds to that. 

Mike Reynolds: It's going to be a lot of choices guys. 

We'll have our popcorn ready. Appreciate you spending a lot of time with us today. A lot of fun. Thanks fellows for being with us again.  

Wade Holden: It's always a pleasure.  

Mac Mathews: Yep. Thanks for having us.  

Mike Reynolds: And this is Mike Reynolds. Thanks to all of you for listening. We'll catch up soon on the next installment of “MediaTalk.”