Hollywood made $33.55 billion at the global box office in 2025, which sounds like good news.
However, while that figure exceeded 2024’s earnings by 11 per cent, it fell below 2023’s $33.9 billion. It is worth noting that Hollywood’s most successful year to date is 2019 ($39.1 billion).
In comparison, 2025’s $33.55 billion does not seem so bad, especially when you consider the disastrous pandemic and the crippling strike Hollywood navigated. So why are many industry experts worried about 2025’s earnings?
Well, the devil is in the details. 2025 was hailed as a promising year for movies because the release schedule was saturated with blockbuster hits, the kinds of films whose success was all but guaranteed. But guess what happened?
Do you remember that era in the 2010s when every major superhero flick was making $600 million or more? Back then, Marvel was recording multiple billion-dollar movies annually. Compare that to Captain America: Brave New World ($415M), The Fantastic Four: First Steps ($521M), and Thunderbolts ($382M).
Those numbers seem perfectly sound until you realize that these blockbusters cost hundreds of millions to make and market, which is why Thunderbolts actually lost money despite making nearly $400M.
Studios spend hundreds of millions of dollars on these projects, because they expect to make hundreds of millions more. Why do you think James Cameron is uncertain about Avatar’s future? Avatar: Fire and Ash has made $1.4M thus far, which is a ridiculous amount of money.
But guess what? Studios care about trends. They keep making John Wick sequels because each film in that franchise always makes more than its predecessor. Avatar 2008 made $2.9 billion. Avatar: The Way of Water made $2.3 billion.
Now, the third installment is sitting at $1.4 billion. Clearly, the interest in Pandora is waning. Is Disney willing to risk another $400M on Avatar 4? What if it makes even less money?
The Jurassic films are safe for the moment, because Rebirth made a staggering $869M. Every movie in the Jurassic World series has crossed the billion-dollar mark. $869M is close enough to that line for the studio to categorize the latest installment as a great success.
They made a decent profit on the film. The same cannot be said for Wicked: For Good, which made $504M, falling short of its predecessor’s $758M. Again, while $504M is good, the downward trajectory is concerning. The Mission Impossible series is probably done.
The Final Reckoning made $598M on a $400M budget. The film lost an estimated $ 200 million. What does this tell us about 2026? No one can say for sure. 2025 was a good year for animated films.
Zootopia 2 is the second-highest-grossing film of 2025 ($1.779M). But does that mean The Super Mario Galaxy Movie will cross a billion dollars like its predecessor? Unlikely. Goat, which stars Stephen Curry, is expected to crash and burn at the Box Office.
While the Scream films have seen a resurgence in recent years, Scream 7 will probably underperform. Then again, no one expected Zootopia 2, A Minecraft Movie, and Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle to perform as well as they did.
2026 has plenty of gems that could become unexpected hits, including the Micheal Jackson biopic directed by Antoine Fuqua (The Equalizer films), The Devil Wears Prada 2, The Mandalorian and Grogu, Masters of the Universe, Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, Toy Story 5, and Supergirl, to mention but a few.
In case you are wondering why you should even care, a strong box office in 2026 will encourage Hollywood to make more of the movies we love. A weak box office may compel them to pivot in ways we don’t like.
katmic200@gmail.com
About the Author
