Why The 2025 Box Office Was A Major Disappointment (And A Bad Sign For The Future)

For those involved in the movie business, there was an unofficial mantra floating around all throughout 2024: "Survive until 2025." The thinking was that after the pandemic closed movie theaters all around the world in 2020, leading to a slow recovery, only to be interrupted by dual Hollywood strikes in 2023, that the box office would finally normalize this year. Instead, 2025 is sadly going to finish as a pretty major disappointment for the box office and the industry at large.

It appears the domestic box office will fail to cross the $9 billion mark for the second year in a row, per Variety. Many industry analysts had previously predicted that 2025 would at least hit $9 billion heading into the year. Unfortunately, a series of disappointing releases that fell short sprinkled throughout the previous 12 months, a summer season that fell well short of expectations, and the ongoing dominance of streaming leading folks to stay home prevented this from happening.

2023 saw domestic ticket sales cross $9 billion for the first time since 2019, which felt like a step in the right direction. Fueled by the Barbenheimer phenomenon and "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," among other blockbusters, there was optimism that the box office was on an upward trajectory. That's no longer proving to be the case.

2024 North American ticket sales topped out at $8.6 billion, about a 5% decrease from 2023. As of this writing, the 2025 figure stands at $8.83 billion, meaning it will finish in the $8.9 billion range. That's a slight increase, but it's still short of the pandemic era high. In the end," Survive until 2025" wasn't enough. The industry is headed in the wrong direction, and it appears that theaters will have to reckon with permanently lowered expectations.

A report from earlier this year suggested that the box office may never recover to pre-pandemic levels. That now feels all but certain, especially when looking deeper at the numbers. From 2009 to 2019, the domestic box office never totaled less than $10.1 billion, and that's when tickets were a little less than $8 on average. Now? They're over $11 on average. Fewer tickets sold and less revenue.

The last time the domestic total was less than $9 billion prior to the pandemic was way back in 2005 at $8.8 billion (when tickets were a mere $6.41 on average). What does that mean in terms of foot traffic to the average movie theater? That year, 1.37 billion tickets were sold in North America. This year, with almost identical revenue, that number is about 781.5 million. That's sobering.

It's important to note that the box office is a global market and that this is just the picture domestically. That said, the only movie to make $2 billion this year was "Ne Zha 2," with the vast, vast majority of that money coming from its native China. Disney has the only $1 billion hits for a Hollywood studio this year with "Lilo & Stitch" ($1.03 billion) and "Zootopia 2" ($1.42 billion). That's a far cry from 2019 when nine movies made at least $1 billion globally.

There are many reasons for this, but the proliferation of streaming is chief amongst them. It's easier than ever for people to get premium entertainment at home. Case in point: In 2024, Netflix generated $37.5 billion in revenue, more than the entire global box office combined. There's also the rise of VOD, with "Trolls World Tour" having kicked off the premium VOD trend in 2020.

People are largely content to wait until they can rent a new movie at home for $20, or exercise patience and wait for them to go to Disney+, Hulu, Peacock, etc. Theaters are largely left to make up the difference with higher ticket prices, expensive concessions, and even popcorn buckets. That only goes so far.

What that can't make up for is the downward trend of the Marvel Cinematic Universe theatrically, with "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" ($521.8 million) failing to crack the global top 10, while Captain America: Brave New World" ($415.1 million) and "Thunderbolts*" ($382.4 million) fell well short of expectations. And even though Warner Bros. and DC's "Superman" was a success with $616.7 million worldwide, that's still a lot less than "Man of Steel" made in 2013 ($668 million). 

October left theaters straight-up bleeding, with high-profile flops ranging from "Tron: Ares" to "The Smashing Machine" making for a wasteland. Pixar's "Elio" ($154.2 million) similarly flopped harder than anyone could have predicted. Even surefire things like "Wicked: For Good" ($504 million) made less than "Wicked" ($758.7 million), with "Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning" ($598.7 million) likewise lagging behind "Fallout" ($791.1 million). These things just keep happening. The rollercoaster refuses to stabilize.

There were bright spots, though, with Warner Bros. hitting it out of the park with "Sinners," "Superman," "F1," "Final Destination Bloodlines," and "Weapons" all in a row, while "Avatar: Fire and Ash" is currently crushing it. Looking ahead, 2026 could potentially be a banner box office year, too, if all goes well. But that's a big if. Unfortunately, if recent history has taught us anything, it's that something can and will go wrong. Expectations must be tempered for the foreseeable future, if not permanently.