2025 Summer Movie Recap

Now that summer is officially over, we can look back at the winners and losers of 2025’s biggest releases.

There were plenty of movies to be excited for this summer, but it ultimately resulted in a less profitable summer compared to last year. Whereas 2024 had multiple billion-dollar films, like Deadpool & Wolverine or Inside Out 2, this summer only mustered a single film with Disney’s live-action remake of Lilo and Stitch. This performance drops the summer down about $500 million from last year ($4.509 vs. $4.015 billion), which still results in a strong summer, but unfortunately, not a financially memorable one.

Worldwide Summer Box Office 1-20

Summer Horror Can Work

Horror has never been relegated to only appearing in the fall or early year drought of movies, but the benefit of releasing in those time periods is that it minimizes their competition against other tentpole, summer blockbuster movies.

It’s encouraging that not only did Sinners do well before the summer started, three other films gained traction on the list, with Final Destination and Weapons taking the 9th and 10th spots, respectively, as 28 Years Later took the 13th spot. 28 Years‘ $151 million haul, which was more than the previous films in the franchise ($74 million for 28 Days and $72 million for 28 Weeks). Perhaps more surprising is when adjusted for inflation, 28 Years still beats them individually ($134 million for 28 Days and $112 million for 28 Weeks). Despite this success, I would still advise caution when stacking horror films opposite summer tentpole movies. While the summer isn’t currently dominated in the same way we came to expect pre-2020, with Avengers movies and Disney animation remakes cluttering the landscape, those films can still suck the air out of a weekend for other releases.

I Know What You Did Last Summer seems pretty dead…this franchise, if you can even call it that, doesn’t seem to have any juice left. If the inclusion of previous survivors in Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prince Jr. didn’t move the needle like the recent Scream sequels, it’s probably time to leave this franchise off the hook.

M3GAN 2.0 Can’t Repeat

Cue a perfect example of mis-scheduling horror during the summer…

When M3GAN or 1.0 debuted in a typically bland January 2023, it racked up $180 million off a humorous, decent script and solid horror performances all-around, surprising many. I have to stress this, it was the darling of a very weak January, and hit the need for that time period. Creating a lackluster sequel and pivoting to a summer release has to be one of the most painful, self-sabotages I’ve seen in a while. To put this disaster into perspective, M3GAN 2.0 only made $39 million total, just $9 more than the first entry’s opening weekend of $30 million. Even if the sequel didn’t match the first one from a quality perspective, releasing in the summer, on the same weekend as F1, and just one week after a superior horror film 28 Years Later, doom was all too ensured.

Now, it may seem contradictory to praise horror films that succeeded this summer while also saying M3GAN should stay in January, but those franchises / films also need to understand their audiences. 28 Years Later is continuing a beloved franchise, and its box office haul reflects that. M3GAN is entertaining horror schlock, but can easily be ignored when there’s more interesting or bigger budget offerings available, which reinforces why January (or even late August if you wanted to stay in summer) would have given this movie room to succeed.

Marvel Slump Still Apparent

Marvel’s ability to simply roll out films to record-breaking heights, always contending financially at the top of the list, appears to be over for now. Yes, that may feel weird to say when they still have two movies in the summer top ten, and three in the top 20 overall…

But this year marks the first time a MCU film has failed to crack the Top Five since 2020, when they had zero releases. Pre-MCU days, you have to go back to 2003’s X2: X-Men United to find a Marvel film that didn’t crack the top 5 (it came in 6th that summer). Though in fairness, it was up against a tough lineup that summer: Finding Nemo, Matrix Reloaded, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Bruce Almighty, and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines took the top 5 spots.

Next year will likely reverse that trend, as we’ll have Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday in the same year, and if those each make $1 billion plus, they will easily hit the Top 5. However, it will also reconfirm that general audiences are only coming out for major event movies like Deadpool & Wolverine, while other establishing films like Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts struggle to reach average MCU profitability.

(Meanwhile, check out our spoiler-free review for the new DCU’s Superman that landed in the 5th spot.)

Originality Sells…To A Point

For all the complaints I hear online about audiencegoers craving originality, the box office doesn’t reflect that fantasy. Weapons took the 10th spot ($61 million ahead of the 11th spot, The Bad Guys 2) while franchise sequels, remakes, and reboots took nearly everything else. Even if you argue that Weapons was held back by being an R-rated horror film, people this summer and throughout the year just haven’t shown up in droves to standalone movies. (Read our spoiler-free review of Weapons here.)

The only exception is surprise blockbuster darling F1, but it’s all too likely that it will be a launching pad for additional entries with either Pitt or Idris reprising their roles. The setup of that film, while certainly fresh, feels too familiar of a vehicle, able to swap in other A-list celebs to take over the reins until it’s inevitably run into the ground like the Fast and Furious franchise. I don’t want to downplay F1 making $620 million – it’s a massive win for Apple and incredibly needed for every cinema exhibitor…but pointing to that as a hallmark of originality just doesn’t pass the driving portion of the test. (Read our review of F1 The Movie here.)

Disney Failed Elio

There’s a bizarre self-fulfilling prophecy that Disney keeps repeating: they fail to promote a movie the same way they would Inside Out or Toy Story, and then they feign surprise when no one shows up. Elemental, Luca, Strange World, Wish, and Elio are a few examples of poorly marketed films that likely could have done better with a stronger push from Disney.

Sure, these films may not be home runs (our own Taryn Belle broke down the problems with Wish), but the idea that families wouldn’t be eager to see them seems laughable. My read on the situation is that odder premises have proven difficult for Disney to market, so they fail to communicate the uniqueness or central hook of the animation. If a child or parent can’t immediately identify why they should care about the film or the synopsis / hook becomes too complicated, no amount of cuteness or imagery will override that inability to connect.

This is a classic Hollywood problem; when you think the horse you rode in on is going to flop, you divert resources, especially marketing budget, to other film projects. When it comes to kid movies, however, there’s a bit more lenience or room to play with that could get families into the theater, and Disney seems too eager with certain projects to simply throw their hands up.

Unofficial Summer Movies

Officially, the summer box office has always started the first weekend of May and ended by Labor Day weekend in September / late August. That being said, it’s foolish not to consider how movies on either end performed to see how they either juiced up or took the air out of the box office before the summer started.

• Sinners (April 18th)
  • $366 million
• The Conjuring: Last Rites (Sept 5th)
  • $332 million
• The Accountant 2 (April 23rd)
  • $103 million
• The Amateur (April 9th)
  • $96 million

The April box office was incredibly strong, as Sinners gave the summer a good dose of energy that carried for weeks (read about the well-deserved hype for Sinners here), buoyed by different offerings like the last two entries, The Accountant 2 and The Amateur. Accountant 2, in particular, had quite the noticeable advertising blitz across social media that likely helped it start well, but given its $80 million budget, they will have to hope it picks up on streaming and digital downloads.

The biggest post-summer surprise goes to The Conjuring: Last Rites; none of us saw this coming. Analysts have been shocked at how well it opened (and how strong it’s stayed over this past weekend, Sept 12-14). It’s entirely possible, since the last movie released during HBO’s controversial simultaneous streaming and theater releases after the pandemic, that the franchise never had a chance to stretch its legs again until this point. Last Rites has already beaten the box office of each previous Conjuring entry and will certainly earn enough next weekend (Sept 19-21) to best them all when adjusted for inflation. It’s an impressive achievement before we get our fall-winter blockbusters and keeps the overall yearly box office on the right track.

Thoughts? Questions?

Do you agree or disagree with my takeaways? Wanna chat about it more? Feel free to reach out on my various social media channels (where this article is reposted), and I would love to chat with you more.

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