The Reset: Is Hollywood Ready for 2026’s Predictions Plunge?

Jan 6, 2026 - 18:45

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Happy Sunday WrapPRO enterprisers,

At a time when every executive is still trying to assess the perils and opportunities of AI for their business, 2026 opens with the growing influence of prediction markets putting them in that same kind of pickle. Cringe at the thought that probabilistic will enter the C-suite lexicon now.

Financializing a form of crowdsourced wisdom for forecasting and managing risk is fast becoming part of business models. In Hollywood, it could mean another form of predictive analytics alongside test screenings and social sentiment surveys, and help steer marketing campaigns — serving as just another insight tool.

Activate Consulting in its 2026 trends report showed that media and entertainment is still a tiny part, at 3%, of transaction volume in prediction markets, but 2026 will prove to be critical for further adoption.

The Hollywood optimist-opportunist may see branded prediction markets tied to major franchises like MCU release dates, TV finales and awards outcomes. Think partnerships between studios and consumer apps to monetize fan predictions. And interactive features in streaming platforms that let audiences “trade” predictions around plot twists, ratings milestones or season renewals. What could wrong, right?

Is it all just gambling disguised as entertainment forecasting?

Remember it was just 15 years ago that Hollywood lobbied hard to ban proposals that would have allowed box office futures trading, a victory for studios that was part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform act.

But prediction markets are already in play: CNBC and Kalshi have struck a multi-year deal to embed real-time prediction market probabilities into programming and digital coverage beginning this year. CNN is also partnering with Kalshi to show predictions in on-air analysis and digital formats.

In wrapping up 2025, Troy Young of the podcast People vs Algorithms named Polymarket media company of the year: “Strikes me that Polymarket, the real-time prediction marketplace, is an important new force that will shape the future of media in radical ways. In a world of deteriorating trust, Polymarket turns ‘What is true?’ into ‘What do people believe will happen?’ Narrative shifts to probabilities. Opinions are priced. Authority comes from the aggregation of financially incentivized stakeholders.

“In a year where institutional trust collapsed further, Polymarket felt more honest and deterministic than the news. That’s why they should be our Media Company of the Year.”

Of course, you can debate that. The worry for Hollywood should be whether forecasting entertainment outcomes for money could lead to controversial and ethically explosive offerings, like betting on a celebrity’s career decisions. Can you imagine the SAG reaction there? Does the passive viewer of a show or movie now become a financial stakeholder in its success?

As regulations remain murky, the question every studio and media conglomerate exec needs to wrestle with for this new year is whether financializing a layer of interpretation for a cultural contribution really a good thing for business and for the art.

TheWrap will be here to cover it all. That’s one prediction you can bank on in 2026. Wishing you all the best in the new year.

Tom Lowry
Senior Vice President/Editorial Strategy
[email protected]

1. Sneak Peek at our 2026 Trends Research Report WrapPRO has partnered with the National Research Group (NRG) to present “2026 in the Frame: 6 Key Media and Entertainment Trends,” our playbook for you for the year ahead.

The report will publish tomorrow and unpack critical trends that will define the year ahead, from the rise of content creators as Hollywood power players to the deepening integration of AI into the industry’s creative workflows. Taken together, these trends offer a snapshot of a fast changing media ecosystem, and the opportunities it presents for studios, exhibitors, and audiences alike.

One trend looks at how original films could continue to make traction. For much of the 2010s and early 2020s, the movie landscape was dominated by sequels, reboots, and cinematic universes—reliably bankable properties that studios leaned on to mitigate risk in an increasingly unpredictable theatrical environment. After more than a decade of franchise dominance, 2025 featured some encouraging box office wins for original movies.

Please keep an eye out for the report. Here’s one of that charts with survey results that will highlight consumer sentiments on original films.

2. Who Are the Top Touring Artists of This Millenium? Live entertainment tracker Pollstar has pulled together of list of the artists since 2001who have sold the most concert tickets.

The list is topped by Coldplay, U2 and Ed Sheeran. Based on worldwide ticket sales reported to Pollstar from 2001 through the end of 2025, the 25 headlining acts collectively sold more than 340 million tickets over the past 25 years, generating grosses exceeding $35.7 billion. “Reflecting pure ticket sales, the list showcases the most popular artists on the planet — those seen by more people than any others,” Pollstar wrote.

And in case you missed it, WrapPRO partnered with Pollstar on an exclusive research report we released in September on the state of live entertainment since the pandemic. Check it out.

Tubi TV CEO Anjali Sud (Photo by Lars Niki/Getty Images for New York Women in Film & Television)

Anjali Sud first became a CEO at 33, rising to the top job at the then-IAC owned video platform Vimeo. This was Sud’s apprenticeship into the changing dynamics of video. After nine years at Vimeo, six of those as chief executive, and after its successful spinoff as a free-standing public company, Sud left for a new role — again as a CEO of a not-so-well-known video service called Tubi that was owned by Fox.

In just two years, the Flint, Mich., native Sud, now 42, is the chief evangelist for a future where streaming is free, ad-supported and attracting sought-after younger viewers. Just look at the 2025 she had: “Tubi set some serious records in May. The Fox-owned streaming service surpassed 100 million monthly users for the first time during the month in question. Not only that, but Tubi also accounted for 1 billion hours of total TV viewership time, according to data from the streamer,” our Kayla Cobb wrote in June.

“Offering a collection of nearly 300,000 movies and TV episodes and 400 originals, Tubi has proven to be a hit among younger viewers,” Cobb continued.

Sud has put Tubi into the conversation dominated by streaming giants Netflix and YouTube in short order. In May, she reflected in an interview with CNBC on her management style and journey. “I spent so much time when I was younger; so much energy was wasted trying to show up as a certain kind of leader or trying to contort myself to be what I thought everyone would want me to be, and I wish I had just taken all that energy and just focused it on my job and myself,” she told CNBC. It wasn’t until she became a CEO that she “had the privilege to be myself.”

Perhaps the most crucial accomplishment for Sud in 2025 was Tubi hitting profitability for the first time in a quarter that saw revenues rise by 27%.

It’s no secret that Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch loves to talk up Tubi to investors and its potential to help boost the company’s financials. The question for 2026 and beyond is how long then before we see Sud’s record being recognized with a role carrying a larger portfolio at Fox, or elsewhere?