Some comeback!
The past 12 months were supposed to turn things around for struggling cinemas. But instead of heralding a dramatic return to moviegoing, 2025 is running neck-and-neck with the middling 2024 box office, and will fall far short of the $9 billion in domestic ticket sales that most analysts expected the theatrical movie business to easily eclipse. Prior to the pandemic, North American revenues would regularly hit between $10 billion to $11 billion. The 2025 results are a massive disappointment that no amount of spin can change. (Already there’s talk of how much better 2026 will be.)
“There’s an unfortunate trend, which that we just can’t get the industry to $9 billion at the domestic box office,” says Mike Sherrill, the chief operating officer of dine-in cinema chain Alamo Drafthouse. “It looks like it’s going to be two years in a row that the industry flatlined.”
More worrisome is the reality that many of the movie business’s biggest franchises are showing signs of oversaturation or fatigue. Marvel continued to struggle with its B Team heroes; February’s “Captain America: Brave New World” and May’s “Thunderbolts” lost tens of millions during their theatrical runs, while July’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” will only eke out a modest profit. And even though “Avatar: Fire and Ash” ($760 million and counting), “Wicked: For Good” ($504 million) and “Jurassic World Rebirth” ($869 million) will rank among the year’s top-grossing releases, they will fail to match the revenues of previous films in their respective series. Clearly, the theatrical industry can’t thrive on sequels and spinoffs alone.
It would be easy to declare an end to comic book movies. That said, genres have risen and fallen throughout Hollywood history — just look at musicals or westerns or raunchy comedies, which have faded in popularity after once being surefire draws. What really has theater owners and some studio chiefs concerned as the year closes out is what the future will hold if Netflix is able to secure government approval for its $82.7 billion deal to buy Warner Bros. Already, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has hinted that he believes that “windows,” industry jargon for the amount of time that movies play exclusively in theaters, are too long. He told Wall Street shortly after the pact was announced that he expects that they will “evolve” in a more “consumer friendly” direction. Everyone knows exactly what he meant by that.
For cinemas, it’s nothing short of an existential threat. During COVID, studios abbreviated the gap between a film’s theatrical release and its home entertainment debut, only to discover that customers got accustomed to waiting to watch movies until they hit streaming or on-demand platforms. If windows keep shrinking, theaters may lose their competitive advantage.
There were also reasons to feel optimistic about the trajectory of an industry that has been knocked down and counted out for half-a-decade. China, which had been hostile to Hollywood fare since the pandemic, embraced a few major studio releases such as “Zootopia 2” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” signaling that one of the world’s biggest moviegoing markets is still accessible to certain U.S. productions. Of course, China is doing just fine without Hollywood — thank you, very much. The year’s highest-grossing release isn’t an English-language production but rather the Chinese animated sequel “Ne Zha 2,” which has generated more than $2.1 billion globally, despite the fact that most Americans would draw a blank at the title.
Family films and video game adaptations proved irresistible to audiences, who flocked to theaters to see the likes of “A Minecraft Movie,” “Lilo & Stitch” and “Zootopia 2.” The three films, all of which carry PG ratings, were the three highest-grossing Hollywood productions, with “A Minecraft Movie” tapping out just shy of $1 billion and “Lilo & Stitch” and “Zootopia 2” both crossing that threshold. It’s the second consecutive year that PG films outgrossed their PG-13 counterparts, which is notable because it’s usually the other way around. Meanwhile anime proved to be a massive boon, with “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” and “Chainsaw Man” scoring back-to-back wins for Sony-owned Crunchyroll.
“What happened with ‘Demon Slayer’ is great because it opens a new category of film,” says Sherrill of Alamo Drafthouse. “About 49% of the audience was under 24 years old. That’s so important because we need to be thinking about what’s going to be relevant for the next generation of moviegoers.”
Comic book content is no longer king. After being the most popular genre for over a decade, these movies have recently looked a lot less superhuman. The latest “Captain America” suffered from a prolonged post-production and extensive rewrites, with critics piling on when the film debuted in February. Although “Fantastic Four” and “Thunderbolts” movies were much better regarded, they still failed to match the kind of grosses that Marvel movies used to routinely achieve before the pandemic. Marvel Studios will have a chance to recapture its box office prowess with next July’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” as well as December’s “Avengers: Doomsday,” which brings back Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans.
Marvel’s rival, DC Films, fared better with “Superman,” a generally well-received Man of Steel adventure that grossed $616 million. A lot had been riding on the success of the film, which centers on the most recognizable name in DC Comics. James Gunn, who took over DC with Peter Safran in 2022, directed the film and positioned it as a reset for a company in desperate need of a fresh direction. For years, DC films such as “Justice League” and “The Flash” have been slammed as too dark and dense. Gunn and Safran wanted to recapture the humor and hope that defined Richard Donner’s 1978 classic, “Superman.” DC’s real challenge will come next year when the studio fields films like “Supergirl” and “Clayface,” which are based on far lesser known characters.
“We needed to have the DC logo be synonymous with quality again,” Safran says. “For too long, our movies had suffered from real inconsistency. It takes time to develop a positive reputation, but this put us on the right track.”
It was a disappointing year for many adult-oriented dramas, with the likes of “The Smashing Machine,” “Bugonia” and “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” failing to make much of a dent at the box office. However, some studios took artistic gambles that paid off handsomely, none more so than Warner Bros., which bet on idiosyncratic horror films like Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” and Zach Cregger’s “Weapons,” both of which attracted huge crowds after they debuted to rave reviews. And awards buzz helped another of the studio’s auteur-driven films, Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” gross more than $200 million. The only problem: With a budget of $140 million and tens of millions spent on marketing, the film stands to lose $100 million theatrically since studios and exhibitors essentially split ticket sales.
“The good news is that when a movie catches the eye of a filmgoing audience, they are ready and excited to go. We saw all kinds of movies work this year,” says Adam Fogelson, chair of the Lionsgate Motion Picture Group. “The challenge is if you have something that, for whatever reason, doesn’t spark people’s interest, the floor is non-existent, regardless of the level of star power. You can have a movie that the audience likes and no one goes to see.”
Tom Cruise’s star power may be dimming, as evidenced by the diminished returns of the mega-budgeted “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.” It ranks among the year’s biggest bombs and may put Ethan Hunt on hiatus, at least until Cruise’s adventure films get less costly. But other talent is ascending to the A-list. Timothée Chalamet, for example, proved that he’s one of the hottest names in movies. The 30-year-old actor has helped make A24’s “Marty Supreme,” a period movie about ping pong, into an unlikely holiday season hit. Credit goes to the star who helped mastermind a promotional push that saw him deploy everything from bright orange blimps to viral videos in service of the indie drama — the marketing blitz drew TikTok fans, as well as arthouse aficionados.
Movie theaters have also relied heavily on premium large formats like Imax and Dolby. The popularity of those screens, which are more expensive than the average movie ticket, has helped to offset the decline in attendance. For visual spectacles like “Avatar: Fire and Ash” or “F1: The Movie,” those PLFs have accounted for 50% to 60% of overall sales. Although industry sales were essentially flat, Imax delivered its best-ever year at the box office with $1.2 billion globally.
“We branched out in genres,” says Imax’s CEO Richard Gelfond. “We were known more in 2022 and 2023 for superhero movies and sequels. This year, we did a lot more in horror and family films. Three of the four biggest animated films in our history were this year, which I don’t think is a coincident. The public’s attitude is expanding to the kind of films they like to see in Imax.”
He suggests that “more diversified content would help insulate theaters from some Hollywood changes.”
Exhibitors have, in fact, been turning to alternative content to populate their screens during the slower months. “Kill Bill” or “Back to the Future” re-releases or “Jaws” anniversary screenings have helped Alamo, for one, pace 5% ahead of the industry’s year-over-year returns. But cinema operators are keenly aware that oldies aren’t going to keep the lights on by themselves. They need Hollywood to supply the kind of new releases that turn multiplexes back into the epicenter of culture.
“I would like to think that studios and distributors are looking at the trends and seeing that original, fresh stories are working,” says Sherrill. “So don’t just give me 20 more movies. Give me 20 more of the stuff that’s meaningful for people.”
Will those type of films fill marquees in 2026? This year, they certainly didn’t.
