The Holiday Box Office Showdown

It’s a showdown- The Hunger Games, Dune and Avengers franchises will all fight for the same moviegoers this season. 

Welcome to the holiday box office, from Thanksgiving to New Year’s. This year, it’s stacked.

2026 is already Hollywood’s best year since the pandemic, and the holidays decide how good it gets. For studios, the stakes are huge. For creators, it’s the busiest stretch of the year. And for anyone watching how movies get marketed now, it’s going to be a fascinating six weeks.

What’s at stake

Theaters are having a comeback year. Through October 11, the U.S. and Canada box office stood at $8.07 billion, up 20% over the same stretch of 2025. The industry hit $8 billion at the same pace as 2011, and 59 days sooner than last year.

The bar now is the post-pandemic record. 2025 finished at $8.87 billion, and the best year since Covid, 2023, topped out at $9 billion. With two-plus months to go, 2026 is in position to clear both. The holiday slate decides by how much.

The holidays have done this before. Thanksgiving 2024 set the record for the holiday: $425 million over the five-day frame, with Moana 2 and Wicked leading. This year’s slate is just as crowded, and the calendar helps: Christmas Day and New Year’s Day both fall on Fridays, giving theaters two long weekends in a row.

For studios, the stakes go beyond one weekend. A strong holiday release plays for weeks while families are off school and work, and it sets the tone for the franchise’s next chapter. A weak one gets lost in a crowded month.

The slate

The big wide releases from the weekend before Thanksgiving through Christmas Day, per Box Office Report’s release calendar:

Release dates can still shift, so check before you plan around them.

The take: Thanksgiving to New Year’s

Thanksgiving belongs to the families, and the fans. Sunrise on the Reaping gets a five-day head start before the holiday, so its second weekend lands on the long Thanksgiving frame. Focker-in-Law and Hexed open the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, aimed at the multigenerational outing. Three films for three different audiences: young adult fans, comedy-loving parents and kids. That’s room for all of them.

Early December is a breather. Between Thanksgiving and Dec. 18, Violent Night 2 is the main new wide release. Expect Thanksgiving holdovers to do a lot of the work, and the marketing for the mid-month showdown to get very, very loud.

Dec. 18 is the main event. Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three open the same day, and the internet already has a name for it: “Dunesday.” Even the stars have played along, with Robert Downey Jr. and Timothée Chalamet both endorsing the term. It’s the biggest same-day matchup since Barbie and Oppenheimer, and the two films are playing different hands. Dune has the IMAX screens. Doomsday has the largest fan base in the business, and it’s been warming it up with an Avengers: Endgame re-release that was tracking for a $25 million to $28 million weekend this fall.

Christmas is for everyone else. The Angry Birds Movie 3 arrives Dec. 23, with Jumanji: Open World and Werwulf on Christmas Day. With the holiday on a Friday, Christmas weekend runs straight into a New Year’s weekend that’s also a long one.

New Year’s is about legs. By the first week of January, the winners will be the films people are still talking about, rewatching and recommending. That’s where the experience, the fandom and the creator conversation decide who holds on.

Creators to watch this season

The timing is perfect. On Oct. 21, The Hollywood Reporter published its third annual Creator A-List, naming the 25 influencers it considers most important to Hollywood, including the TikTokers and YouTubers studios treat as their press-tour secret weapons. A few names worth watching as the holiday press tours ramp up, from the list and beyond:

The bigger trend sits behind the list. Creators are moving from the red carpet to the call sheet. Sony just hired former YouTube executive Fede Goldenberg to run its Screen Gems label, which will develop theatrical films only from creators. The creators covering this holiday season may be making next year’s.

The opportunity

In a season this crowded, attention is the scarcest thing on the calendar. Every film is fighting for the same feeds, the same weekends and the same family debates over where to go. The ones that win will reach audiences where they already are, and keep them talking past opening weekend.

For studios:

For creators:

At IZEA, our Media & Entertainment team helps studios and streamers stand out in crowded release windows, by matching each film with the creators whose communities are most likely to buy a ticket. Six weeks, two long weekends and a historic showdown. Let’s make it a holiday to remember.

Sources