2026 Domestic Box Office Hits Best First-Quarter Pace Since COVID

For an industry that has spent the better part of six years cautiously describing each strong weekend as a sign of recovery, 2026 is starting to feel like something more durable than a bounce.

Through the first weeks of April, the North American box office was tracking at $2.113 billion in total domestic revenue, a 23.5 per cent increase over the same period in 2025 and the best showing for the January-through-April corridor since before the COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally restructured moviegoing habits, according to data from Comscore cited by The Hollywood Reporter and Screen International.

The recovery has been driven by three films in particular. Amazon MGM’s adaptation of Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary became the studio’s all-time domestic box office record holder, surpassing $300 million globally. The film, widely praised as one of the more ambitious and accessible science fiction productions in years, demonstrated that original storytelling on a grand scale can still break through in a market crowded with franchise sequels.

Pixar’s Hoppers has been another revelation, crossing domestic milestones that place it as the highest-grossing domestic original animated release since Coco in 2017, before being overtaken in that specific record by The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. The Mario sequel, from Illumination, has been the biggest commercial story of the spring, blasting to $373 million worldwide and counting.

In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the momentum has been even more pronounced. The combined box office leapt 42 percent in March compared to the same month in 2025, with Project Hail Mary and Hoppers leading the charge. Year-on-year across the UK and Ireland, the market is up 8 percent on 2025.

Despite the enthusiasm, industry veterans are tempering expectations. Hollywood and theater owners continue to navigate a post-pandemic landscape in which annual domestic revenue has not come close to the pre-COVID benchmark of $11 billion, and by the same point in April 2019, the market had already cleared $2.619 billion on its way to a $11.4 billion full-year total.

Still, for theater chains, studio distribution executives, and the broader exhibition community, the trajectory of early 2026 represents genuine cause for optimism — particularly with a summer slate that includes Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, and the live-action Moana remake all still to come.