Exclusive: UK Cinema’s Ad Giants Split on Guy Ritchie’s Wife & Dog

Movieversalfilm Exclusive · UK cinema data · Wednesday 28 October 2026

Guy Ritchie’s Wife & Dog has been marked as a blockbuster by DCM, the company that sells the adverts before most films in UK cinemas. On its schedule that label means a film expected to reach a million admissions in its cinemas. Pearl & Dean, the other big name in UK cinema advertising, puts the same film’s box office at just £2.5 million. We went through DCM’s published schedule title by title and checked each of its blockbusters against Pearl & Dean’s film pages, to see which films the UK cinema business is banking on and where the two disagree.

What We Found

• The source: DCM’s downloadable film schedule for 2026 and 2027, marked “correct as of 14.10.26”, colour-codes every film it lists. Orange is for “Blockbusters (1m+ DCM admissions)”. Green is for major releases, red for family films, and bronze for films expected to play mostly in independent cinemas
• The million-admission club: From November 2026 to the end of 2027, 27 films are in orange: five this winter and 22 next year
• The second opinion: Pearl & Dean’s film pages give an “Estimated Box Office” figure for many of the same titles. We checked them on 28 October
• The rule of thumb: The UK’s average cinema ticket cost £8.01 in 2025, according to the UK Cinema Association, so a million admissions is worth roughly £8 million at the box office
• UK availability: Every film here is a UK cinema release. Dates are the ones on the two schedules and can still move

DCM says it represents 85% of the UK cinema advertising market, with Cineworld, ODEON, Vue and Picturehouse among its partners. When it puts a film in orange, it is telling advertisers where it expects the biggest crowds to be. These are sales tools, not studio forecasts, but they are about as close as the public gets to seeing what the UK industry expects.

This winter’s five million-admission films

Five films still to open in 2026 are in DCM’s orange band. Where Pearl & Dean has published a figure, it agrees that each is a big hitter.

• The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping (Lionsgate, November): Pearl & Dean estimate: £25 million
• Focker-In-Law (Paramount, 25 November): Pearl & Dean estimate: £20 million
• Avengers: Doomsday (Disney, 16 December): No Pearl & Dean estimate published yet
• Dune: Part Three (Warner Bros, 18 December, with IMAX previews on 15 December): No Pearl & Dean estimate published yet
• Jumanji: Open World (Sony, 23 December): Pearl & Dean estimate: £25 million

It is just as telling who isn’t in orange. Clayface, which opened on 23 October, sits in green as a major release. So do Violent Night 2 and Shah Rukh Khan’s King, which Pearl & Dean puts at £1 million. The big Christmas showdown is exactly where you would expect: Avengers: Doomsday on 16 December and Dune: Part Three, whose tickets went on sale on 20 October, two days later.

Where the forecasts split

Most of the time the two companies tell the same story. Four films in DCM’s orange band stand out because Pearl & Dean’s figure is far lower.

• Wife & Dog (Black Bear, 19 February 2027): DCM orange. Pearl & Dean estimate: £2.5 million, or roughly 310,000 tickets at last year’s average price
• Star Wars (1977) 50th anniversary re-release (Disney, 19 February 2027): DCM orange. Pearl & Dean estimate: £2 million, or roughly 250,000 tickets
• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (Paramount, 12 November 2027): DCM orange. Pearl & Dean estimate: £6 million, or roughly 750,000 tickets
• The untitled Daniels event film (Universal, 19 November 2027): DCM orange. Pearl & Dean estimate: £8 million, roughly a million tickets, so this gap is small

Wife & Dog is the widest gap. Pearl & Dean lists Rosamund Pike, James Norton, Benedict Cumberbatch and Anthony Hopkins in the cast of a story about betrayal and murder in the Fairbank family’s battle for succession. A million admissions in DCM’s cinemas alone would be worth around £8 million. That is more than three times Pearl & Dean’s figure.

The pair don’t even agree on who will be watching. DCM bases its Wife & Dog audience on Bullet Train, a crowd that was 32% female, with 47% aged 16 to 34. Pearl & Dean bases its version on The Roses, a crowd that was 57% female, with 43% aged 45 and over. One is selling a younger, mostly male action crowd. The other is selling an older, mostly female one.

The Star Wars split is just as interesting, and it lands on the same Friday. DCM bases its audience on The Rise of Skywalker, a new-release blockbuster. Pearl & Dean bases its version on last year’s re-release of Revenge of the Sith. That one choice explains a lot: is a 50-year-old film a nostalgia event or a fresh blockbuster? February will settle it.

Next year’s million-admission list

These are the 22 films in DCM’s orange band for 2027, with Pearl & Dean’s estimate where it has one.

• Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew (Sony, February): £25 million
• Star Wars (1977) re-release (Disney, 19 February): £2 million
• Wife & Dog (Black Bear, 19 February): £2.5 million
• The Thomas Crown Affair (Amazon MGM, 5 March): £12 million
• Godzilla x Kong: Supernova (Warner Bros, 26 March): £11 million
• The Legend of Zelda (Sony, 30 April): £25 million
• Star Wars: Starfighter (Disney, 28 May): no estimate yet
• How to Train Your Dragon 2 (Universal, 11 June): £20 million
• Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse (Sony, 18 June): no estimate yet
• Ocean’s prequel (Warner Bros, 25 June): no estimate yet
• Man of Tomorrow (Warner Bros, 9 July): £25 million
• A Minecraft Movie: Squared (Warner Bros, 23 July): £40 million
• A Quiet Place Part III (Paramount, 30 July): £10 million
• The new Simpsons movie (Disney, 3 September): £22 million
• The Conjuring: First Communion (Warner Bros, 10 September): no estimate yet
• Universal’s next Mummy film, listed as “The Mummy Franchise” (Universal, 15 October): £22 million
• Treasure Island (Sony, 11 November): no estimate yet
• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (Paramount, 12 November): £6 million
• The untitled Daniels event film (Universal, 19 November): £8 million
• Avengers: Secret Wars (Disney, 17 December): £65 million
• The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum (Warner Bros, 17 December): £40 million
• The Housemaid’s Secret (Lionsgate, 17 December): £25 million

The biggest figure Pearl & Dean has published for any of them is £65 million for Avengers: Secret Wars, more than eight million tickets at last year’s average price. And 17 December 2027 is shaping up as one of the most crowded days in years, with Marvel, Middle-earth and The Housemaid’s Secret all landing on the same Friday.

How to read these numbers

• Family films are counted separately: Big family titles go in DCM’s red “Family Focus” band rather than orange. So Shrek 5 and Frozen 3 aren’t on the orange list, even though Pearl & Dean puts them at £35 million and £40 million
• Different cinemas: DCM’s million is counted in its own cinemas. Pearl & Dean doesn’t say on its pages how its estimates are worked out
• Different dates: DCM’s schedule dates from 14 October. Pearl & Dean’s pages were checked on 28 October. Release dates can move, and the two sometimes list slightly different days
• What they are for: Both are sales tools for advertisers. They are informed bets, not promises

The UK has had a strong year for big studio releases, with Universal enjoying its best year ever at UK and Irish cinemas, and these lists suggest the industry expects that to carry on through 2027. We will check back on the films where the forecasts split as they open.

Who do you think is right: is Wife & Dog a million-ticket film, and would you go back to the cinema for the original Star Wars?