2026: The Year of the Billion-Dollar Blockbuster

Could 2026 be the year in which the film industry finally shakes off the hangover of the pandemic and the strikes? Full slates from the major studios suggest that it might, and IndieWire is boldly predicting that six films will take more than $1bn at the box office worldwide this year, up from four in 2025. We’ll list them below so you can check back in a year’s time.

Last year closed out strongly with the release of Wicked: For Good, Disney’s Zootropolis 2 and James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash. The excitement they created among the broadcasters, podcasters and influencers we speak to has carried over into this year and created strong appetite for movie content. And that’s an appetite for all films, and not just the billion-dollar blockbusters. We’re going to be busy this year on behalf of all our clients, from independents to the streamers and the big studios.

Box office receipts rose in the US and the UK in 2025 despite a mixed year of releases, and are almost certain to rise again over 2026. But we’re unlikely see cinema attendance recover to pre-pandemic levels this year. At Cameo we’re huge fans of the broadcasters and streamers, watch their content voraciously and value them as clients, but like almost everyone else in this industry we have a romantic attachment to cinema. We hope that the real value of a year of blockbusters will be in rekindling regular cinema-going among those who got out of the habit over lockdown, or when slates were sparse after the strikes. We hope every extra bum our coverage puts on a cinema seat for a billion-dollar release returns the following week for new director’s first film.

IndieWire’s six billion-dollar movies for 2026:

Avengers: Doomsday

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie

Moana

Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Toy Story 5

The Odyssey