Heading into the summer 2025 movie schedule, it looked like Hollywood had stacked the deck. James Gunn’s Superman was meant to restore DC’s battered crown. Jurassic World Rebirth promised to roar up another billion. Disney’s Lilo & Stitch remake seemed like a surefire nostalgia-fueled smash. On paper, this was the strongest lineup since the Barbenheimer double feature miracle of 2023.
Film analysts expected the domestic box office to finally cross the elusive $4 billion mark for only the second time since 2019. Instead, the season looks to finish at $3.53 billion, per Comscore (via Variety). It’s better than last year’s $3.52B, but still short of the milestone. So what happened?
Why the $4B Mark Slipped Away
The problem wasn’t just one flop. It was a death by a thousand cuts at the box office. Thunderbolts ($382M) and The Fantastic Four: First Steps ($471M) landed far below Marvel highs. Pixar’s Elio barely cracked $150M. Even Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning grossed nearly $600M, but thanks to a ballooning $400M budget, it’s a money loser. M3GAN 2.0 barely registered at $39M. Yes, Lilo & Stitch cleared $1 billion globally, but it narrowly lost the domestic crown to A Minecraft Movie ($421.7M vs. $423.9M, according to ScreenRant).
What the summer missed was an Inside Out 2 or Top Gun: Maverick. There was no social media phenomenon that kept audiences showing up for weeks. Without one, the slate felt fragmented rather than unified.
What Audiences Actually Showed Up For
Ironically, originality kept the box office alive in August. Netflix’s theatrical experiment with KPop Demon Hunters, a two-day sing-along event, hauled $18M on just 1,700 screens. Zach Cregger’s new horror movie hit,Weapons continues to have legs, already near $200M worldwide. And Ryan Coogler’s Sinners crossed $275M domestically. In other words, when audiences felt like they were seeing something new, they showed up.
Will The Fall Be Better At The Box Office?
Looking ahead, Boxoffice Pro’s forecasts suggest the fall season could be steadier, if less explosive. While September and October are considered slower months at the movies, Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw production HIM, is tracking at $15–25M in ticket sales. Could it replicate the surprise success of Candyman? Only time will tell.
Kogonada’s A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, a fantasy drama starring Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell, is pegged at $10–15M, his widest release to date. And Angel Studios is testing its faith-and-sports lane again with The Senior ($2–4M), hoping to find another American Underdog-style success.
The real test will come mid-September with Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle (projected $35–45M) and later this fall with heavyweights like Wicked: For Good and Zootopia 2. If those deliver, the 2025 box office could still end on an overall high. There are also several horror movies, the upcoming The Conjuring: Last Rite, headed to theaters that could help bolster the box office.
The bottom line is that this summer showed progress, with 2025 outgrossing 2022 and 2024. At the same time, it also highlighted how brittle the box office continues to be. Big franchise tentpoles, like upcoming superhero movies alone, aren’t enough; the audience is picky, quick to reject formula, and surprisingly eager to embrace the unexpected. A billion-dollar Stitch, a Netflix K-pop anime crashing theaters, and an original horror film with legs all tell the same story: people still want to go to the movies. They just want something worth leaving the house for.
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