Hollywood's box office rebound may be gaining steam. Bloomberg Intelligence sees 2026 ticket sales rising to $9.2 billion, while media consolidation could reshape the industry. The Boxoffice Company SVP Daniel Loria joined Bloomberg TV with his movie outlook for 2026.

Hollywood's box office in 2025 saw a combination of record-breaking weekends and the weakest October in three decades, reflecting ongoing volatility in the industry. Major releases like "Lilo and Stitch" and "Mission Impossible" contributed to the highs, while fewer overall studio releases limited opportunities for success.

Looking ahead to 2026, analysts estimate box office revenues could reach $9.2 billion, though the first quarter is expected to be slow. The industry continues to rely heavily on sequels and established franchises, but original films and international markets, especially China, play a crucial role in overall performance. Independent filmmakers maintaining theatrical exclusivity are also highlighted as vital for industry diversity.

Hollywood's Box Office rebound?

Give us a little review of kind of what we saw in terms of ticket sales for the industry in 25 and what's the expectation for next year? Well, we had some highs and lows this year. I think the highest obviously the best performing memorial day weekend of all time That's right. I forgot about that movies like ililo and stitch You had the latest mission impossible and then we also had the worst october in a generation excluding 2020 I think it's the worst one in 30 years something like that So highs and lows very much there and that's completely correlated Directly connected to the film slate if you don't have enough releases from studios There's less opportunities to go up to the plate and do well. I didn't think there were that many good movies I go to the movies a lot i'm at the alamo usually on a weekly at least at least uh once every two weeks and other than Um one battle after another I really wasn't impressed by almost anything this year It's been you know highs and lows there as well and now I know by the way Who it is that i'm reporting with the cards when I go to the alamo. That's where I recognize the voice from They don't throw people out enough I need to throw more people out at the alamo But no, I think there's been some great movies You bet you mentioned one battle after another from warner brothers a great film. There were a lot of divisive movies I think there's a fantastic movie from 824, uh called eddington from the director. Ari aster About okay. I have not seen that yet. It's about the 2020 pandemic and all the grifting from that period, right? That's not going to be an audience-friendly movie. You're going to have to wait a couple of years to revisit that one Well, they'll play it in the alamo in a couple years because they bring back the old pics It's there. What's the uh outlook for 2026? What are the studios? Slated, you know, I think the the data point that you pulled up a second ago 9.2 billion makes sense According to what we're looking at here internally at the box office company Uh getting to nine might be the the baseline honestly It's a box office that really hasn't hit that mark consistently And if we look at the schedule q1 is going to be a slow It's going to be a slog time going through a very let's say inconsistent calendar during that period I'm thinking around 1.6 billion in the first quarter, which is isn't great This uh, 2025 was 1.45 I think around there But in july things really take off you have a lot of 10 posts on july July is really going to make or break the the 2026 in general. What are they? I mean we had Uh, I think it was the cfo of disney on and he was telling us about his film slate and I noticed every single thing That he mentioned was a sequel or the fifth toy story, right? He's like, oh we have zootopia 2 by the way, not nearly as good as zootopia 1 Um, he toy story 5, you know avatar 3 like is there anything new coming out of these studios? There's new things coming out. You just mentioned one battle after another from warner brothers They had a couple of other great original hits this year I can't I can't overstate how good that movie was and especially for a car lover Like for a car guy, it was far better for me than f1 I was I was hugely disappointed by f1 One battle after another with its homage to bullet was just an amazingly well shot well written Movie and an original right and you had from the same studio sinners weapons You have originals out there that audiences are clamoring sinners and weapons were also great movies Now these movies aren't built to be billion dollar movies originals aren't so they're not going to be part of this conversation But they play a crucial role in the marketplace What did you think of f1 because this is what I was talking with joe about, you know, i'm A car lover a race fan. So to me f1 was too much. You're too inside baseball though That's like big tent, you know big box office movie and not enough actual racing joe loves baseball Joe loves wrestling so he didn't like money ball He didn't like iron claw and I guess if you're really into ping pong then you're not gonna like marty supreme, right? Well, the good thing about marty supreme is it's much more a new york city movie than a ping pong movie great movie about living In the city and kind of faking it until you make rent. That's what it feels like living in new york Especially in your 20s early 30s. It's a movie about that. I highly recommend that doing great in the marketplace So far and timothy tim is it timothy? I don't know t chalamet. Does he win an oscar for that? Well, I don't know the oscar's coming or not, but he's had like a christmas movie the last three years That's another one next year with the next dune movie. It's a chalamet smith. Yeah My daughter wants to name our next kid timothy chalamet miller Oh, there you go. That just flies off the tongue. Talk to us about china for the longest time That was a growth driver for global hollywood. Then they kind of shut down here with the pandemic and other issues I understand it's opening back up now Well, it depends on the sort of movie that plays in the chinese market the chinese market doesn't need hollywood to be a behemoth It had the only two billion dollar movie this year a movie that only made one percent of its global gross in the united states nation too Uh and the movie really that just needed china to succeed on its own but we also saw it play a crucial role for disney this year and releases like Avatar fire and ash currently in release over there and a fantastic run from zootopia, too Disney being the only studio that has had a billion dollar global earner in 2025 outside of china's nation, too by the way, uh warner brothers Um, the the battle there I think is very fascinating in that David ellison paints himself and his sister as you know, a a duo that want to make movies for the creative Um community and put them in theaters on the big screen, which I laud right as a fan Whereas netflix, you know, they typically want to stream stuff if it goes in the theater Maybe a week or two, but they really don't care at all about the movie theater. What's your take on this? We need movies that's my number one priority here We need more movies coming out in theaters in order to grow the box office back to pre-pandemic levels Whoever gets us there. That's fine But the reality is but is netflix going to get us there and i'm not sure paramount will either to be completely honest The way I compare this and I apologize for this comparison. It's like eating a poop sandwich and arguing over the bread It's not going to make any much of a difference. You and elizabeth warren are on the same page. Yes here How are the theater operators doing? I think they're concerned uh more on the film availability on which billionaire group ends up tackling warner brothers, right? Uh, is it going to be much of a difference if warner brothers still exists and only puts out seven to eight movies a year No, can I get an independent movie made today? Can I go out to sundance and shop it and and like um, I don't want to use the Miramax, but that's the only company I can think of at the moment in the early days the weinstein company is what you pick Exactly. Well, if we we don't have to go that back far in time to the last academy awards where uh, An independent filmmaker like sean baker put out a movie like enora through neon great movie one best picture movie Did it go to to streaming two weeks into its run? No, it stayed there for a full theatrical exclusivity window full theatrical run It basically won most of the oscars if not all of them honestly that it was nominated for That's a great example of a filmmaker who believes in the filmmaking experience Who will shoot a movie on an iphone if he has to and make a movie on his own terms? He's not going to go into the sundance to marvel pipeline Like we've seen so many other filmmakers do he's gonna stick to his guns and release movies No matter if they're big tentpoles out to theaters. We honestly need more of that

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Breakdown