The 2026 Box Office Draft

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0:41Spring is starting, so it's time to wake up your yard. And at The Home Depot, they've got everything you need to do it with low prices guaranteed. Mowing your lawn is a dream with top brand outdoor power tools like the Ryobi 40 volt mower with up to 50 minutes of runtime. You can add a pop of color with spring blooms and fresh plants and refresh your garden beds with earth grow mulch, five bags for just$10. Start your spring with low prices now through April 1st. Available at the Home Depot. Exclusions apply. See homedepot.com slash price match for details. It is Monday, January 19th. It's draft day.

1:22The town's fourth annual box office draft. If you're not familiar, this is where Lucas Shaw and I poll our sources with, we hope, some inside knowledge of the year ahead in movies, and pick the biggest winners at the worldwide box office. This year is particularly challenging, I think. I feel like last year there were a few clear standouts and then a lot of A - or even B-level properties that the studios try to dress up into blockbusters. This year, there's lots more big guns. The clear A-level properties like Super Mario Brothers and Toy Story and Spider-Man and Avengers and so on. If everything goes right, there will be way more than$3 billion groceries this year, which is what we had last year.

1:58Now, if you remember the rules, Lucas and I will go back and forth. Each draft seven movies to be released in 2025. With each movie, we get the overall worldwide box office, but we also subtract the production budget, not including marketing. The winner is whoever collects the most money. And as always, Lucas and I will give each other a movie that we think is a bomb waiting to explode. That movie needs to cost at least$100 million. Okay, enough intro. Let's get to the 2026 box office draft. From The Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany, and this is The Town.

2:35Okay, we are here with Lucas Shaw from Bloomberg, and we are ready for the draft. Lucas, are you ready? We're in studio. We are. We're live, in person, at the Spotify headquarters, doing the draft. Craig, are we going to go over last year or are we just going to skip that? Oh, please. I'm sure you want to skip it because for the first time, Lucas Shaw has won the box office draft. Congratulations. A landslide victory. He's dancing around the studio. He won by pretty much a billion dollars. Yes. Really, this is embarrassing. So it's two to one me. We've done this our fourth year. I won twice. You won the first one, big win.

3:09Second one was a nail biter that you won. And third one was more like year one, which was a surprise because we thought it was going to be a nail biter. Yes. but then Zootopia basically outgrossing Avatar was... Avatar absolutely screwed me. It's good for the show that it's now 2-1. We didn't want a 3-0 situation. Do I count as an injured player for this draft? You do have a sliced off finger. Show the camera your sliced off finger. Also, I should say that so far, every person that has had the first pick in the draft has lost. Oh, wow. Three years running now, the guy with first pick has lost.

3:41Okay, so that's an interesting little... I should tank the trivia question as well. That's interesting because we are going to have a trivia question from Craig to determine first pick. But you can either pick first pick or you can pick first for the bombs. Oh, you can do that. Yes. So you pick either. That's the wrinkle this year. Now, if you win the trivia, you can basically have the choice. Do I want the first pick in the draft or the person with the second pick then gets the first bomb? I'm so curious. I know you hate when I bring this up, but you did famously give me Oppenheimer two years ago.

4:08I just know that because I won last year, you're trying to spend as much time talking about year one as possible, which is fine. That's okay. We do have a new, this is our first year with a new Christopher Nolan movie since that year. That's true. And as you know, the winner gets taken to the Dodger game of his choice during the season. Craig joins as well. And that's a big deal. Now they sign Kyle Tucker. That's going to be a big, the ticket's probably going to be much more expensive. Beers will be 30 bucks. So I'm expecting dugout club. A lot at stake here. A lot at stake. All right, let's go.

4:38Craig, the trivia question to determine draft order. do you want a question about box office or do you want a question uh about movie studios studios what is what does studio question mean all right we're gonna do studios this one's gonna be tricky this one i think will be more uh even i don't think either of you will will know this off the top of your head in the sound era of movies after the silent era what is the most amount of films released by a studio in one year oh yeah by a single studio by a single studio the the record it's a tie between two studios. Oh. And you just want the number.

5:13Yes. I can give you the studios. It's Paramount and Warner Brothers. That's not going to matter. That's not going to help. I think it's going to we're going to go back to like the westerns and the musicals when they were just pumping them out. So I'll give you five seconds think about it and then we'll say the answer at the same time. that's going to be probably way off. This is the most amount of movies a studio has released in a single year. Sure. You guys ready? Three, two, one. Forty. Twenty-eight. Lucas said forty. Matt said twenty-eight. Yeah. The answer is 68. Whoa! Jesus Christ, when was that?

5:40Paramount in 1936 and Warner Brothers in 1937. Wow. I was actually going to go 45 and I was worried it was too high. 68 movies. That was just when they were just pumping out, like, you know, melodramas and westerns and musicals. Yeah, and they owned the theaters back then, right? So we know what this means. Pushing those movies through. So now Lucas is going to, no, what do you select? Ooh. You get the decision. First pick or first bomb? This is tough because my prevailing theory on this is that... We don't care. I don't care about your thought process. Just pick. I don't think bombs matter. Says the guy who gave Matt Alpenheimer.

6:14Yeah, yeah, exactly. But I do only have one sure thing bomb. I'm going to take first pick and try to break the cycle. Okay. With the first pick in the 2026 box office draft, Lucas selects... Spider-Man. Interesting. Okay. Not bad. Last one did$1.9 billion in 2021. Biggest Spider-Man ever. That was released around Christmas. This one is getting a kind of odd date for a Spider-Man movie. It's July 31st. It's got the Deadpool date. Okay. I'm sure it's going to do great. Not much competition there. There is a new director. There's a lot of competition leading into it. But what I'm basically banking on is Spider-Man has been the most foolproof franchise in Hollywood.

6:57And I think as we're going to go through, there are probably four like no question billion dollar movies this year and it and one other have the two highest ceilings. It's probably got a slightly lower floor than a couple of the others. So this is risky but I think you got like I'm not going to fault you for that. The only wrinkle I would say is that because of Chris Nolan's relationship with IMAX, it does not have the IMAX screens that first week. Nolan has three weeks of exclusivity on IMAX so that will bleed into the first weekend of Spider-Man. I hear you. So just saying yeah but i'm not gonna argue that one okay my first i'm curious where you're going here i'm going family movies toy story 5 if you look at the number one movie the past two years not saying it's indicative but inside out 2 zootopia 2 yeah they led their years 1.7 billion for each this one i've been told by multiple people now it's great it's got a great premise it is exactly in that mold of nostalgia that feels fresh and it's got the Pixar release date, June 19th.

8:03Andrew Stanton is directing. He's one of the old school Pixar guys. This one cannot lose. I agree. Craig's laughing because he's going to clip that when it underperforms. Well, because you said there's, yeah, anyways. I did say that about Avatar. There are so many great quotes from the last draft. I came very close to having Toy Story first. I agree that animated is a sure thing and what I think Toy Story has going for it is that it's been a few years since the last one and so there will be some pent up demand. Yeah, the last one didn't gross what the previous one did but that's okay. And I had some conversation with a few people who were trying to debate did the catastrophe of Lightyear color this at all?

8:42I don't think so. So yeah, I'm not going to quibble at all. You've now put me in a very difficult position with my next one. No, there's great movies left. No, no, no. I just think the next two is I'm going to go against my rankings and I'm going to go with Mario because I do think that I got to stick with kids. You're putting me in a bad position to, I'm going to select a movie that I really want to fail. Yes. But go, go. Look, Mario is the first massive kids movie of the year. There's a couple of kids movies before it, but they're original and I don't think they're going to be nearly as big.

9:12It's got most of April to itself. I would say that Mario has the highest floor, probably of any movie we're going to take. I would be shocked if it didn't hit a billion. Yeah. All the elements are back. I just think it might not have this. I think it could have like a little dip from the last one because there's not as much excitement. And not that my opinion on this matters, but I didn't think the first one was like an amazing movie. You're not a nine-year-old boy. My kid thought it was Citizen Kane. Right. So I think it's a safe bet because I was sort of hoping you wouldn't take Toy Story and I could then take Toy Story.

9:44But here I am. And I thought I was going to like, I thought going into this, there would be a chance that I would take like six movies in this Disney movies in this draft. And right now I've got zero. Well, now. You're going to be all Disney. So, all right. My number two pick, I'm going to go with Avengers Doomsday, December 18th. Last one did 2.9 billion, but most recent Marvel movie, Fantastic Four, did 500 million. So... The question is, is Avengers a totally different beast from the rest of the Marvel movies? And, like, it's obviously going to be way bigger than Fantastic Four. A billion is the floor.

10:18But is it going to get to 2 billion? Right. I don't know. Because I, in my rankings, had it above Mario but I wasn't going to surrender both of the top kids movies to you. The marketing already seems lame to me but Disney put out a release saying that they got like a billion views. I mean, clearly there is interest in this and it's the downy factor. To many people, Marvel is downy and having him back is a big deal. Yeah. So the Russos, I mean, it's unbelievable that they continue to get big jobs but I am now aligned with them. I'm officially rooting for them. You're team Disney. I am team Disney.

10:56They love me. Do you think that, do you think it's fair to say that those four movies we just picked are like clearly a cut above? Yeah, but not the only billion dollar grocers of the year. You think it's definite that a couple of others will get there? There's at least two more that I believe will be billion dollars for sure. So pick one. This is your number three pick. Okay, I'm going to have to roll the dice here. Okay. I've heard wildly different opinions about this. I think this is where I go, Nolan. Okay. All right. Give me your reason. The Odyssey. I will probably regret this and not taking the next kids movie that I was going to take.

11:34But I think that he has entered the rare pantheon of directors that people just show up, whatever it is. It looks like huge summer spectacle. It's going to be IMAX everywhere. It's a global story. And there's just... Although you claim that nobody in Brazil knows what it is. I know, but then we heard the response. We got a number of responses from people in Brazil. Notably, we did not hear from people in South Korea or Japan, which I've also referenced. But they do read The Odyssey in high school in Brazil. And yeah, I just, I've learned my lesson and I'm going to... Listen, Oppenheimer did 975, almost a billion dollars in 2023.

12:07Did get lifted by Barbie. Got lifted by Barbie, became a meme. You know, the other comps for Nolan, Dunkirk did 550. Interstellar did 775. Inception did 840. Probably too high. These are not like... Not a billion dollars. Billion dollar movies. Now, I would argue that he won Best Picture. He continues to get bigger and bigger. This is the ultimate dad movie. And the question I have for this movie is, will women show up? Right. And we don't know. Maybe there's a hook for females. There's a lot of stars, including stars that women love, like Zendaya and Hathaway. We'll see. Sword and Sandals, typically not gigantic.

12:44Gladiator 2 did$462 million. Troy did$500 ,000. Not on that upper level. I will say that the ceiling on this one is higher. If it hits, if it's great, if it becomes a coronation. The range I had on this was among the biggest. And I was picking between something that has probably the narrowest range of any movie that I have and the biggest range. All right. So for my number three pick, I'm deciding between two family movies. And I'm going to go with Minions 3. That was my other next obvious pick. Yeah, I think that if you look at the numbers for the Despicable Me movies, this movie's out July 1st.

13:23They're wildly consistent. Incredibly consistent. Like, they always get to just around a billion dollars. Like, usually a little under, sometimes a little over. But, like, people show up for these things. And it's going to give me fewer heart attacks to have something consistent in my menu. I can't object to it. Super consistent, lower ceiling. Yeah, exactly. But I'll take a billion dollars. I don't think it'll get to a billion, but I think it'll, no, I think it's going to be like eight or nine, which is just fine. It's got that 4th of July release date. It's two, yes, but so you and I are both interestingly competing with ourselves.

13:59So I took the Odyssey, which is right before Spider-Man. And so if, if the Odyssey is huge, it will eat into Spider-Man. You took, uh, Minions, which is right after Toy Story. And you know what? There's going to be a Minions trailer on Toy Story, and hopefully it'll cause everyone to go see both. Okay. Okay. Number four for you. There's a big one sitting out there that neither of us has touched yet. I think I know which one you think is the big one. To me, I think this is now a choice between two Disney movies. Okay. And it's, do I believe in Moana or do I believe in Mandalorian? Yeah, that's the choice.

14:35Last Star Wars did a billion. You know what? I'm not going to influence your vote. I've gone back and forth on these two a lot. Moana's, like, have they kind of tapped it out too much? are they rushing these mandalorian is can a tv can a kids movie be big i'm gonna go mandalorian i think the date matters a lot yeah okay i think because the thing that worries me a little bit about moana is that it is after both toy story and minions and i think the kids market by then will be a little saturated yeah mandalorian has i think like two weeks to itself yeah it also So Favreau shot an IMAX, so he's getting IMAX.

15:13And Favreau doesn't really miss. He doesn't. I am bummed you picked that. I would have picked it. But you're also Star Wars fan number one. I am. I am a noted Star Wars fan. I have now three times an... But I will say the previous Star Wars movie did gross a billion, but it was widely panned and killed the franchise for seven years. So they're kind of restarting here. And the fear is that people say, oh, Mandalorian movie, that's a TV thing. like oh I'll just watch that when it's on TV and I haven't seen anything in the trailer the trailer was like fine but it didn't suggest to me anything that was theatrical right it was like oh this is different from the show bigger than the show something I need to see in theaters so they have some work to do on this one but Favreau shot the movie in IMAX and they're going to get the screens and I don't know if it gets to a billion I don't think it does I don't think it does either but I don't think Moana does either okay so I'm picking Moana yeah I think it could.

16:12The trailer is like embarrassing. It looks like a shot by shot remake of the animated movie. Right. But that works. Like that works for them. So I was down on Lilo and Stitch last year. And you said millennials care about Lilo and Stitch. I think millennials and Gen Z cares a lot about Moana. And they will show up for this. I do not think millennials care about Moana. No, even though it's the number one movie on Disney Plus. That's because of children. I'm not saying... But they were children. Moana's not that... Moana's 10 years old. It's not for millennials. Not for millennials. Sorry, Gen Z and young millennials.

16:51When they were in high school and stuff, they got into Moana. Look, I think you have learned the lesson from last year that I have unlearned, which is you're just taking all the kids' movies. Although I would argue Mandalorian and Grogu is kind of a kids' movie. Definitely. Moana makes me a little nervous, but I think it'll make$700-800 million and you'll be fine. I think it has potential to do a bit. to be bigger. Yeah. I think, yes. The music, people love the music. You know, it's a good time. Moana's a good time. Just an FYI, the first one only did 634 in theaters. The first Moana. In 2016.

17:24Yeah, but then it blew up. But Moana 2 did a billion. But I will, yes. And it was a repurposed TV show.

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18:17And participate in McDonald's while supplies last. All right, number five pick for you. Draft starts now, kind of. Yeah, we're getting into the risky picks. I don't think the next two are risky. It's just there's a total wild card with, like, what the fuck is Warner Brothers going to do with this Dune movie? You mean they could move it? Yeah. I don't think they are. like timmy's talking about it as if they're trying to make a thing out of doonesday releasing it the same day as doomsday so i think there i mean there's enough to go around during the holidays for both yeah they are slightly different audiences they overlap you think that's a floor raiser for both or is there a risk that it hurts one more than the other well let's let lucas pick first and then there's nothing there's nothing i don't think there's anything that really hurts the event but dune shot well i don't want to i don't want to tip my hand here.

19:06You pick. I'm going to go with Dune. Final one of the franchise. Chalamet has never been bigger. Zendaya is going to have the best year in the many, many years. She will potentially have the best year for a female actor ever. And I just, I think the floor on the Dune movie is pretty high. The last one did 715 only in 2023. And it's going up against Doomsday. Yeah. But these movies are very well liked. Chalamet's bigger than he was last time. and they shot it in IMAX, so they're getting the screens over Avengers. And they play well internationally. Yep. So not a bad pick. Were you about to say not an embarrassing pick?

19:44No, not a bad pick because, well, we're getting down there because there's some other movies here that are riskier. So I'm going to take a huge swing right now. Okay. I'm picking Michael. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. So this one has a gigantic ceiling. Michael, the Michael Jackson movie, the troubled Michael Jackson movie that they had to completely reshoot because of some legal issues. It's turned into mostly fan service is what I'm told. A big celebration and concert. But the footage that has been circulating amongst people, they love it. I think internationally, this is going to be huge, especially in Asia.

20:26And it's got its April 24th release date. Bohemian Rhapsody did$900 million in 2018. What is the release date? I thought it was April 24th. Okay. So it's after Super Mario. Right. But before some of the big summer movies. Right. And I think that this movie could do 500. It could do 1.5 billion. Like if this becomes a thing that people see over and over again overseas, the ceiling is very high. Yeah. I had it on the list. I had it a little lower. I think you're right that it'll be big overseas. I think he's pretty toxic here. Yes and no. we say that but then you know the vegas shows are our hits the broadway not everyone cares not everyone cares and honestly like not everyone even knows about that stuff anymore what's the highest growth is bohemian rhapsody the highest grossing out of like musical biopic yes and what did that hit a billion over 900 so and michael jackson a lot more popular than queen right although way more popular they both died seems like the movie is going to be not great we don't know antoine fuqua i mean maybe maybe they have you know you put me in a real john logan wrote it he's got a good track record you put me in a real tricky position here so but but there's other safer picks out there yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna go with a with a very safe one i'm gonna take jumanji 3 that's fine december 11th those movies just they print money overseas yeah the last one did 800 million dollars in 2019 though that was seven years ago yeah look there's been a there there was a real drop off from one to two, but I think with the star power in it and the international appeal, I think it's a, just a really safe pick.

22:04Yeah, I agree. Much safer than Michael, but I think the ceiling. Oh yeah. The ceiling is probably what the last one made. Yeah. Okay. Now we're really getting into it. No, I know exactly what my next pick would be. And if you take it, I'm going to jump across the table. Oh, okay. This worked out well for me. If you don't take it, because I don't have to go into the well of movies. I was unsure about. God, I don't know what you're going to take here. I don't think you're going to take Project Hail Mary. So I'm going to take Disclosure Day. Oh, wow. I know. You're going Spielberg. It's another risk.

22:37Oh, God, I'm already losing this draft. No, you're playing high upside. I know. You know, it's because I want this to be good. I hear you. I'm tainted. You're wishcasting. I am wishcasting. I'll give you a little quiz. What was Spielberg's last movie to gross more than$500 million worldwide? It wasn't the Ready Player One. It was. It was. Okay. I didn't even know if it got there. 2018. And 200 million of that was in China. Right. So, like, this is a risk. I think, yeah, I think it's a huge risk. I was never going to take it. June 12th. Spielberg just has not been a huge box office draw. He doesn't mean anything.

23:13Yeah, but he hasn't been trying. I know. But he tried with West Side Story, but that was COVID. COVID everything. I just don't think that he, that name no longer means anything to like the young movie goers. I disagree. I still think it's a brand. And even if this skews older, something to you. No, I know. But I'm saying even if it skews older, that's okay. Right. It's fine. If those people show up, you're going to laugh at my next day. Okay. So you're, you're, but you're laughing at disclosure day. I'm not laughing. I, I, so I put both disclosure day and another movie into the same camp, which is like my lesson from Oppenheimer, which is I will never bet against someone with such a proven track record.

23:55But I'm not touching it. We should say that you guys each have six movies right now. You have one more before you have to give each other the bomb. So you get seven movies. So this is your final movie for each of you right now. Go ahead. You're going to laugh at me. Devil Wears Prada 2. No, I'm not laughing. Yeah. No, I'm not. That's a perfectly respectable pick for the budget. Yeah. I think everything I've heard is that it's good. And I think that the nostalgia thing really matters. and we see some of these movies that were like big. I mean, it's what we just talked about, Lilo and Stitch, obviously different audience and all of that, but a movie that meant something and only grew in kind of affection over the years.

24:33The problem with that is that you're also describing Freakier Friday. Yeah. Which got to 150. But what did the first Freaky Friday make? I don't know, but I do know that the first Devil Wears Prada made about 350. Only made 350, but that was 20 years ago. First Freaky Friday made 160. Right. 160. So if it repeats, it's$350. And if it grows at all, we're talking$4 or$5. Okay. Is that enough for our draft? I think Disclosure Day gets to$400 for sure. But Disclosure Day probably costs twice as much money. Maybe. Yeah. I didn't realize Gaga is in Devil Wears Prada 2. Like a real role. I think Devil Wears...

25:09So I was a little worried that too many of my picks have been for men. This is... If you look at what we've selected, this is the first movie, I think that any of us have taken where you would estimate that women will be in the majority of the audience. Yeah. Unless you're counting a kid's movie because Ma or whatever, but like... Well, it's interesting. You didn't take Hunger Games, speaking of women's movies. There was a group of about five movies towards the bottom where I was like, which of these? And I think Hunger Games, if you take it, would not judge at all because the one thing that neither one of us has taken yet, we don't have a Thanksgiving movie.