Box-Office Forecasters Keep Missing the Mark

A Minecraft Movie blasted past industry expectations with a $160 million box-office debut in just the US and Canada, despite projections that it would make around $65 million (a big win in and of itself). It’s another surprise in recent years that has Hollywood studios and media analysts wondering why the typically reliable box-office forecasting has gotten so off the mark.

The Big Picture: Studios rely on box-office forecasting to determine how to modulate their marketing campaigns in the run-up to a movie’s release, communicate expectations to Wall Street, and prepare for demand (or lack thereof). When tracking is off, an unpredictable industry only gets more unpredictable… which means some studios may push for updated forms of box-office tracking in the digital age.

Behind the Scenes: Warner Bros. had no idea the hit it built with Minecraft.

• Just before the movie’s release, some analysts started to increase their projection to somewhere between $85 million and $100 million, thinking they were adequately accounting for the hype.
• But when the movie was released, no one expected the massive turnout from Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids, who had grown up with the video game and were very eager to be part of the wild “chicken jockey” theater experience.
• And while good word-of-mouth is counted on to keep grosses high in a film’s second week, the speed of the internet (and many memes) means the “water-cooler moment” now happens in hours, not days. People flocked to the theaters immediately.
• To date, A Minecraft Movie has made over $552 million globally — making it the highest-grossing Hollywood movie of 2025.

Our Forecast: Top box-office tracking services like NRG and The Quorum develop their forecasts by polling hundreds of moviegoers several times a week starting about a month before a movie’s release, then comparing the data to past similar films. While the services are pretty accurate most of the time, they’ve been way off when it comes to runaway hits, especially ones catering to teens or women — Inside Out 2, Barbie, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and It Ends With Us, for example. David Herrin, founder of The Quorum, even told Bloomberg, “We are not good at tracking family films.”

To get around this issue, we wouldn’t be surprised if tracking services start polling people inside game platforms — you know, the places where kids hang out.