With last weekend’s NOBODY 2 representing the summer’s final wide release movie from a major Hollywood studio, industry publications took the opportunity to look over the numbers from the 2025 summer season. Their analysis showed a mixed bag, with the domestic box office of the summer of 2025 improving slightly from 2024 but coming in lower than the summer of 2023.
Quite a few Hollywood movies performed well this year, including F1: THE MOVIE, SUPERMAN, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, and JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH, all grossing more than $600 million globally, and MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: THE FINAL RECKONING getting very close to that mark with $597 million. This compares favorably to last year’s summer movie season, when only three films hit $600 million worldwide.
On the other hand, this summer lacked the breakout hit that had powered the summer season in the past few years. Only LILO & STITCH grossed over $1 billion, and this was not in the same league as last year’s INSIDE OUT 2 ($1.7 billion) and DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE ($1.34 billion), BARBIE ($1.45 billion) from 023, or TOP GUN: MAVERICK ($1.5 billion) from 2022.
The analysis was a bit of a Rorschach test to show the personality of each publication. Some outlets highlighted the breadth of solidly performing releases, while others framed the season as disappointing based on the absence of a breakout hit.
While there were a few surprise hits like FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES and WEAPONS that showed the strength of the horror genre, there were also underwhelming performances from Marvel’s FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS, prompting fresh concerns about the health of the MCU. Overall, the industry appears to be in a period of transition, without a clear indication of which types of movies studios may prioritize going forward.
