The 2025 box office has already shown significant improvement. Theatrical exhibition has had a turbulent decade so far after theaters and productions alike were shut down worldwide in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Recovery has been sporadic, with theaters seeing huge record-breaking hits like 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, and 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick interspersed with unpredictable duds. The 2024 release schedule was also complicated by a relative lack of tentpole blockbusters in the wake of the 2023 strikes, when actors and writers took to the picket lines to fight for fair pay.
Per Variety, the overall box office for 2025 as of the beginning of February is tracking 12.3% higher than the same point in 2024. It is also tracking 3.5% higher than 2023, which at that point was not yet affected by the strikes and had shown some pandemic recovery. This is happening on the strength of new release hits including One of Them Days, Dog Man, Companion, and Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, as well as successful holdover hits from 2024 such as A Complete Unknown, Moana 2, Mufasa: The Lion King, and Wicked.
What This Means For The 2025 Box Office
It Is Finding Slow And Steady Success
This major improvement at the box office has taken place in spite of the fact that no new release has yet become a true runaway hit. In fact, only three of the five weekends of the year so far saw the chart topped by a new 2025 release, with the Mufasa: The Lion King release taking No. 1 two nonconsecutive times. However, there are more mid-level тιтles performing well than previous years. Below, see a breakdown of how many movies grossed more than $20 million at the domestic box office by early February over the past three years:
|
Year |
$20 Million+ тιтles |
Total |
|---|---|---|
|
2023 |
Avatar: The Way of Water, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, M3GAN, A Man Called Otto, Plane |
5 |
|
2024 |
Wonka, Mean Girls, Migration, Anyone But You, The Beekeeper, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Night Swim, The Boys in the Boat |
8 |
|
2025 |
Mufasa: The Lion King, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Moana 2, Nosferatu, Wicked, A Complete Unknown, Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, One of Them Days, Dog Man, Flight Risk |
10 |
It is impressive that the year has shown so much growth in spite of not having any major new tentpole releases become runaway successes at the level of previous January releases such as Blumhouse’s M3GAN (which grossed $83 million at the domestic box office that month alone), the Mean Girls musical ($61.9 million in January), or even the Jason Statham action movie The Beekeeper ($43.6 million in January). While 2025 is being bolstered by a cadre of 2024 holdovers, both new releases and 2024 releases are showing similarly strong audience hold.
Our Take On The 2025 Box Office
The Year Could Continue To Improve
This has all taken place before February 14, which is likely to kick off the biggest weekend of early 2025 thanks to the simultaneous domestic debuts of Paddington in Peru and Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World. While those movies should provide the year with an early sH๏τ of adrenaline, helping the box office surge even further ahead of 2024 and 2023, other upcoming tentpoles show strong potential to continue this trend through the end of the year. That roster includes Lilo & Sтιтch, Fantastic Four: First Steps, Wicked: For Good, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, and Jurᴀssic World Rebirth.
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Source: Variety
