Heading into the summer, Hollywood was bullish that several promising blockbusters would be able to propel ticket sales above $4 billion for only the second time since the pandemic. But as the season winds to a close, it\u2019s clear the domestic box office will fall short of that lofty benchmark.<\/p>\n
Overall revenues from May 1 to Aug. 24 have reached $3.53 billion, according to Comscore. Popcorn season is typically the most profitable period for the movie business, with revenues regularly accounting for around 40% of the annual box office. But domestic ticket sales have only surpassed the $4 billion figure once since COVID lockdowns, during the glory days of \u201cBarbenheimer\u201d in 2023.<\/p>\n
More from Variety<\/strong><\/p>\n Disney\u2019s \u201cLilo & Stitch\u201d is the highest-grossing film of the summer with $421 million in North America and $1.03 billion globally. It\u2019s the only 2025 release from a Hollywood studio to cross $1 billion. Other bright spots were \u201cJurassic World Rebirth\u201d with $844 million, \u201cHow to Train Your Dragon\u201d with $626 million, \u201cSuperman\u201d with $604 million, \u201cF1: The Movie\u201d with $603 million, plus A24\u2019s indie hit \u201cMaterialists\u201d with $85 million and Zach Cregger\u2019s sleeper hit \u201cWeapons\u201d with $199 million to date.<\/p>\n But those box office wins weren\u2019t enough to offset a number underperforming tentpoles, like \u201cThunderbolts*\u201d ($382 million) and \u201cThe Fantastic Four: First Steps\u201d ($471 million), neither of which lived up to the heights of prior Marvel movies, as well as Pixar\u2019s \u201cElio\u201d ($150 million), \u201cMission: Impossible \u2013 The Final Reckoning\u201d ($597 million) and \u201cM3GAN 2.0\u201d ($39 million). In the case of the latest \u201cMission: Impossible,\u201d the film\u2019s outsized $400 million budget makes it a major money loser despite its high gross. Compounding those disappointments, the season lacked a runaway sensation on the size and scale of 2024\u2019s \u201cInside Out 2\u201d ($1.69 billion), 2023\u2019s \u201cBarbie\u201d ($1.44 billion) or 2022\u2019s \u201cTop Gun: Maverick\u201d ($1.49 billion).<\/p>\n \u201cOn paper, 2025 boasted one of the strongest slates of summer movies ever,\u201d said senior Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian. \u201cWhat was not considered was that the summer movie ecosystem is very fragile; there is no margin for error. August this year is when things really slowed down. And with no July holdover smash like last year\u2019s \u2018Deadpool & Wolverine,\u2019 the momentum was hurt in the home stretch of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n This year\u2019s revenues did manage to improve upon last summer\u2019s $3.52 billion haul, led by \u201cInside Out 2\u201d and \u201cDeadpool and Wolverine,\u201d as well as 2022\u2019s tally of $3.41 billion, anchored by \u201cTop Gun: Maverick.\u201d But ticket sales have yet to ever return to pre-pandemic highs, like 2019\u2019s $4.38 billion bounty, according to Comscore.<\/p>\n Overall fortunes might take a while to rebound through the rest of the year. That\u2019s because the fall movie slate is missing a sure-fire success. However, Hollywood is relying on strength in numbers with a slew of upcoming September releases such as \u201cThe Conjuring: Last Rites,\u201d \u201cDownton Abbey: The Grand Finale,\u201d sports thriller \u201cHim\u201d and Paul Thomas Anderson and Leonardo DiCaprio\u2019s big-budgeted \u201cOne Battle After Another.\u201d Then there\u2019s the sci-fi sequel \u201cTron: Ares\u201d and video game adaptation \u201cMortak Kombat II\u201d in October. But barring a sleeper hit, business isn\u2019t expected to start booming again until \u201cWicked: For Good\u201d and \u201cZootopia 2\u201d open around Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n \u201cAugust, September and October are the slowest months of the moviegoing year,\u201d says David A. Gross who runs the movie consultancy firm Franchise Entertainment Research. \u201c2025\u2019s year-to-date box office should continue to gain on 2024, but it will be at a sluggish pace.\u201d<\/p>\n Best of Variety<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Heading into the summer, Hollywood was bullish that several promising blockbusters would be able to propel ticket sales above $4 billion for only the second time since the pandemic. But as the season winds to a close, it\u2019s clear the domestic box office will fall short of that lofty benchmark. Overall revenues from May 1 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1977750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[341512,22860,77556],"class_list":["post-1977749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-comscore","tag-hollywood","tag-ticket-sales"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Summer-Box-Office-Wont-Reach-4-Billion-Milestone-After-All.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1977749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1977750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1977749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1977749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1977749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}