There will also be a comeback!
The past 12 months were supposed to turn things around for struggling movie theaters. But far from heralding a dramatic return to the box office, 2025 will be on par with the middling 2024 box office and far short of the $9 billion in domestic ticket sales that most analysts expected the theatrical film business to easily surpass. Before the pandemic, North American revenue regularly reached $10 billion to $11 billion. The results for 2025 are very disappointing and no amount of spin will change them. (There’s already talk of how much better 2026 will be.)
“The unfortunate trend is that we’re not going to get the industry to $9 billion in domestic box office revenue,” said Mike Sherrill, chief operating officer of dining theater chain Alamo Drafthouse. “The industry is likely to remain flat for the second year in a row.”
Even more worrying is the reality that many of the film industry’s biggest franchises are showing signs of saturation and fatigue. Marvel continued to fight the B-Team heroes. February’s “Captain America: Brave New World” and May’s “Thunderbolts” lost tens of millions of dollars during their theatrical releases, while July’s “Fantastic Four: First Steps” only made a small profit. And while Avatar: Fire and Ash ($760 million, still to come), Wicked: For Good ($504 million), and Jurassic World: Rebirth ($869 million) rank among this year’s top-grossing films, they still fall short of the earnings of past films in their respective franchises. Clearly, the theater industry can’t thrive on sequels and spin-offs alone.
It would be easy to declare the end of comic book movies. That being said, genres have waxed and waned throughout Hollywood history. If you look at musicals, westerns, and raunchy comedies, they used to be reliably popular, but their popularity has waned. The real concern for theater owners and some studio executives as this year ends is what will happen if Netflix wins government approval for its $82.7 billion deal to buy Warner Bros. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has already hinted that he believes the “window,” industry parlance for the amount of time a movie is shown exclusively in theaters, is too long. He told Wall Street shortly after the deal was announced that he expected it to “evolve” in a more “consumer-friendly” direction. Everyone knows exactly what he meant by that.
For movie theaters, this is nothing short of an existential crisis. During the coronavirus pandemic, studios shortened the time between a movie’s theatrical release and home entertainment debut, but found that customers were accustomed to waiting to watch movies until they were released on streaming or on-demand platforms. If operating hours continue to shrink, theaters could lose their competitive advantage.
There was reason to be optimistic about the trajectory of an industry that had been shattered and weeded out for five years. China, which has been hostile to Hollywood films since the pandemic, has accepted several major studio productions, including “Zootopia 2” and “Avatar: Fire and Ashes,” showing that one of the world’s biggest film markets still has access to some American productions. Of course, China does just fine without Hollywood – thank you very much. This year’s highest-grossing film was not an English-language one, but the Chinese animated sequel “Ne Zha 2,” which grossed more than $2.1 billion worldwide, despite the fact that most Americans blank out when they hear the title.
Family movies and video game adaptations proved appealing to audiences, who flocked to theaters to see the likes of “The Minecraft Movie,” “Lilo & Stitch,” and “Zootopia 2.” All three films have a PG rating and are among the highest-grossing Hollywood productions, with “A Minecraft Movie” just shy of $1 billion and “Lilo & Stitch” and “Zootopia 2” both passing that threshold. This is notable because it’s the second year in a row that a PG movie has outsold a PG-13 film at the box office, and it’s usually the other way around. Anime, on the other hand, has been a big boon, with Sony-owned Crunchyroll scoring back-to-back wins with “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” and “Chainsaw Man.”
“What happened with ‘Demon Slayer’ is a great thing because it opens up a new category of film,” says Alamo Drafthouse’s Cheryl. “About 49% of the audience was under the age of 24. This is very important because we need to think about what is meaningful to the next generation of moviegoers.”
Comic book content is no longer king. These movies have been the most popular genre for more than a decade, but these days they’re no longer superhuman. The latest film, “Captain America,” suffered from lengthy post-production and extensive rewrites, and was met with criticism when it was released in February. While the Fantastic Four and Thunderbolts movies received much better reviews, they fell short of the box office success that Marvel movies routinely achieved before the pandemic. Marvel Studios will have a chance to regain box office success with next July’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” and December’s “Avengers: Doomsday,” which recasts Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans.
Marvel’s rival DC Films grossed $616 million with its Man of Steel adventure film Superman, which received generally positive reviews. Many were riding on the success of the film, which featured one of DC Comics’ most famous names. 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 new direction. DC movies like “Justice League” and “The Flash” have long been criticized for being 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 will produce films like “Supergirl” and “Clayface,” which are based on lesser-known characters.
“We needed to make the DC logo synonymous with quality again,” says Safran. “For too long, our films have been plagued by realistic contradictions. It takes time to build a positive reputation, but this has put us on the right track.”
It’s been a disappointing year for many adult dramas, with the likes of Smashing Machines, Bugonia and Springsteen failing to make a big splash at the box office. But some studios took an artistic gamble and gave away big bucks. Nowhere has Warner Bros. bet more on idiosyncratic horror movies like Ryan Coogler’s Sinners and Zack Creger’s Weapons, both of which received rave reviews and huge crowds in their debuts. And, aided by awards buzz, the studio’s other writer-led film, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, grossed more than $200 million at the box office. The only problem is that the movie, which had a $140 million budget and tens of millions of dollars spent on marketing, will lose $100 million in theaters because the studio and the box office essentially split ticket sales 50-50.
“The good news is that once a movie reaches movie-going audiences, they’re ready and excited to go see it. We’ve seen all kinds of movies do well this year,” says Lionsgate Film Group Chairman Adam Fogelson. “The problem is, if there’s a film that doesn’t appeal to people for whatever reason, no matter the level of star power, there’s no floor. Sometimes the audience likes a movie, but no one goes to see it.”
Tom Cruise’s star power may be waning, as evidenced by the declining returns of the big-budget Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning. The incident ranks as one of the year’s biggest bombshells and could potentially put Ethan Hunt on hiatus, at least until Cruise’s adventure film becomes cheaper to make. But other talents are also making their way to the A-list. For example, Timothée Chalamet has proven that he is one of the hottest names in the movie world. The 30-year-old actor helped turn Marty Supreme, A24’s period drama about table tennis, into an unexpected holiday hit. The star deserves credit for masterminding a promotion that included everything from bright orange blimps to viral videos for the indie drama. The onslaught of marketing won over not just arthouse aficionados, but TikTok fans as well.
Movie theaters have also relied heavily on premium large formats such as Imax and Dolby. The popularity of these screens, which cost more than the average movie ticket, has helped offset declining attendance. For visual spectacles like “Avatar: Fire and Ash” and “F1: The Movie,” these PLFs account for 50% to 60% of overall sales. Although industry sales were essentially flat, Imax had the highest annual box office gross of all time with $1.2 billion in worldwide box office receipts.
“We’ve branched out into different genres,” says Imax CEO Richard Gelfond. “In 2022 and 2023, we became known for superhero movies and their sequels. This year we did more horror and family films. Three of the four biggest animated movies in our history were this year, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Public attitudes are expanding toward the types of movies they want to see on Imax.”
He suggested that “more diverse content could help protect theaters from changes in Hollywood.”
In fact, exhibitors are turning to alternative content to display on screens during off-peak periods. Thanks to re-releases of “Kill Bill” and “Back to the Future,” as well as anniversary screenings of “Jaws,” Alamo is on pace to beat the industry’s year-over-year revenue by 5%. But movie theater owners are keenly aware that oldies movies won’t keep the lights on on their own. They need Hollywood to provide new releases that will return multiplexes to cultural centers.
“I think studios and distributors are paying attention to the trends and making sure that original, fresh stories are working,” says Sherrill. “So don’t just give me 20 more movies, give me 20 more that are meaningful to people.”
Will these types of movies be popular in 2026? That certainly wasn’t the case this year.
