This Film Will Be the Highest Grossing Movie in 2026 Based on the Odds

Many movie buffs are betting on what will be the highest-grossing movie in 2026, and the results are unexpected. Now that award season for 2025 is finally over, we can pay more attention on the blockbusters that are slated for the rest of the year. The biggest contenders at the box office for 2026 include Avengers: Doomsday, The Odyssey, Toy Story 5, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Dune Part 3, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. So far, according to a bet on Polymarket, the box office race is hotly contested between two of these movies, but a third is only losing on what is a technicality.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is surprisingly at the top of the list

People are betting on The Super Mario Galaxy Movie as being the highest-grossing film of 2026, surprisingly above Avengers: Doomsday and Spider-Man: Brand New Day, based on a Polymarket spread that has an impressive volume of more than $1.8 million dollars (as of March 18).

The full results have The Super Mario Galaxy Movie with 37% of the vote, with Spider-Man: Brand New Day not far behind with 30%. Avengers: Doomsday shockingly has 16% of the spread, though this is mainly due to the bet itself resolving on December 31, only about two weeks after the release of the much-anticipated film on December 18. That severely cuts the amount of money the movie can make before the bet is over. Of course, this is assuming that the movie doesn’t get delayed again in the first place, pushing it out of the 2026 window altogether. It wouldn’t be too surprising to see it be pushed forward or back in the calendar given that Dune Part 3 shares the same release date (either that, or Dune Part 3 could be moved instead).

The rest of the movies in the spread don’t have as much backing as the 2026 box office winner: The Odyssey (4%), Toy Story 5 (3%), Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu (2%), Dune Part 3 (2%), Project Hail Mary (1%), Michael (1%), and The Hunger Games: Sunrise of the Reaping (1%). On the bottom of the list, Jumanji 3, Wuthering Heights, Wicked: For Good, and Scream 7 all received less than 1% of the bet. That’s understandable since, as of March 18, Wuthering Heights has only earned $226 million at the global box office, Wicked: For Good has $533 million, and Scream 7 has $177 million.

For context, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is expected to rake in a total of about $412 million (somewhere between $350 million and $485 million) from the domestic box office alone, based on a March 13 projection from BoxOfficeTheory. Despite analysts believing that this sequel doesn’t have the same novelty as the original The Super Mario Movie (2023), which earned a whopping $1.36 billion at the global box office, it would not be out of place for this follow-up to still go past the $1 billion mark.

As for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which will release in the US on July 31, it might get close to the $1 billion mark, if we base it on the box office numbers for other Spider-Man movies that came out in the last decade. Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) earned $880 million worldwide, while the animated films Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) strung up $394 million and $690 million, respectively.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is lucky that Avengers: Doomsday has been effectively neutered by the parameters of the bet. Avengers: Endgame made a whopping $2.7 billion at the global box office and remains the second highest-grossing film of all time. It’s true that Marvel’s films have struggled to perform well in 2025, with Captain America: Brave New World getting $415 million, Thunderbolts* grabbing $382 million, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps earning $521 million. But the anticipation for another Avengers movie has been building for over six years at this point, and Avengers: Doomsday could well surpass The Super Mario Galaxy Movie when everything is said and done.

Source: Comingsoon.net