Summer box office 2025 | Profits may be down, but Hollywood needs to watch where it makes cuts

As the summer season ends, Hollywood executives are nervous about its disappointing box office numbers. So what can the industry do in response? It’s probably not a good sign when the revival of a 50 year-old movie makes more money at the US box office than new offerings. Admittedly, this isn’t just any 50-year-old film: ... Summer box office 2025 | Profits may be down, but Hollywood needs to watch where it makes cuts

As the summer season ends, Hollywood executives are nervous about its disappointing box office numbers. So what can the industry do in response?

It’s probably not a good sign when the revival of a 50 year-old movie makes more money at the US box office than new offerings. Admittedly, this isn’t just any 50-year-old film: it’s Jaws, the killer shark thriller that ushered in the concept of the summer blockbuster in 1975. Perhaps it’s only fitting, then, that the re-release of Steven Spielberg’s salty classic coincides with what is beginning to look like a new era for major Hollywood films.

Jaws re-surfaced in US cinemas on the 29th August, capping off a distinctly uneven summer season by making $12.8m – more than the newly-released Caught Stealing or The Roses. Three months ago, it was widely hoped that the film industry would bounce back with a profitable summer, setting aside the memories of the pandemic nadir and the protracted Hollywood strikes that threw the sector into yet more chaos.

But despite a strong-sounding lineup of superhero fare, movie star-led action and family-friendly animation, it’s reported that US ticket sales between May and the 1st September are fractionally down on last year: cinemas made $3.67 in 2024 and $3.6bn this year. It’s a marginal decline, but a decline nevertheless – and considerably lower than the $4.09bn made in 2022.

The numbers are ominous because studios brought out some of their biggest guns for 2025. Marvel’s The Fantastic Four and DC’s Superman were highly anticipated by comic book fans, meaning they enjoyed decent opening weekends, but both tailed off fairly quickly thereafter.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps opened to just over $117m domestically, but stalled at $266m at the end of its run. Superman performed better, with a $125m domestic opening and a final US take of $351m. But in a further sign of shifting tides for Hollywood, international numbers for both films were muted; all told, The Fantastic Four made $507m worldwide and Superman brought in $611m.

By most yardsticks, those are still huge numbers. But compare them to the grosses of Marvel and Warner Bros/DC’s most successful superhero films, and they begin to pall somewhat. Just a few years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for comic book movies to breach the $1bn mark. The most successful examples, such as Spider-Man: No Way Home and Avengers: Endgame, made around $2bn and $3bn, respectively.

Nor are the lower numbers restricted to superheroes. Universal’s dino-sequel Jurassic World: Rebirth did well at $885m worldwide, but it’s less than its poorly-received predecessor Jurassic World: Dominion ($1bn) or the film before that, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ($1.3bn).

In fact, of this summer’s offerings, only one – Disney’s Lilo & Stitch redo – made more than $1bn. So what’s going on?

The first, most obvious factor is that the pandemic has changed viewing habits, perhaps forever. A growing number of people are opting to stay at home and wait for a movie to appear on a streaming service rather than go to see it at the cinema. If audiences go to the cinema at all, their visits are becoming fewer and farther between.

Ironically, one of the factors that has fluffed up box office numbers over the past four years may also play into the decline in cinema-goers. The prices of tickets has steadily increased, either due to inflation or because of the growing numbers of premium options available, such as huge IMAX screens, comfier seats or the dreaded 4DX. Inflated ticket prices mean more profits for cinemas and studios, but the growing cost means wider audiences will be more selective about what they spend their money on. Hence why known quantities like Deadpool & Wolverine, Moana 2 and Lilo & Stitch have been such big hits. 

Globally, Hollywood movies are now making less of an impression in overseas markets. At their peak, US films were bringing in hundreds of millions from Chinese cinemas. Transformers: Age Of Extinction made over $300m in China alone – a sizable chunk of its $1.1bn global box office. Furious 7 was even bigger, making $391 in China following an aggressive marketing campaign. Since the 2020s, however, Hollywood’s films have dwindled in the region, as audiences choose to support their own country’s movies instead; hence why animated fantasy sequel Ne Zha 2 made $2bn there, despite barely making a dent in other countries. 

Read more: The rise and fall of Hollywood movies in China

A recent piece at The Hollywood Reporter suggests that Hollywood executives have been left in a state of anxiety over this summer’s box office. One analyst notes that there was only one weekend in the whole period where numbers were up on the previous year’s takings. 

“I don’t think the studio system will fill the gap that started from the pandemic,” JustWatch boss David Croye told the outlet. “It’s not as mass a market anymore. It’s about an even smaller group of people going to the movies more often. So there’s a lot more streaming and watching at home.”

So if dwindling cinema-goers are the problem, what’s the solution? The owners of the world’s cinema chains are unlikely to agree to slash the price of tickets, especially with expensive-to-run but lucrative attractions like IMAX screens being popular with visitors that do still leave their houses to watch movies. 

Ruling that out, the next solution is to cut the price of making the movies themselves. Marvel’s Kevin Feige has said that efforts are being made to rein in the price of making its superhero flicks, though to date, it’s still spending north of $180m on its recent output, which also includes this year’s Thunderbolts*. Similarly, Universal hired director Gareth Evans to make Jurassic World: Rebirth because he’s the kind of economical filmmaker who can make an $80m film look twice as expensive, but his dinosaur adventure still cost $180m – down on Dominion’s elephantine $465m, though that film’s costs spiralled due to the pandemic.

With profit margins falling, Hollywood will likely try to cut budgets further – though this raises the concern that it’ll slash costs in the wrong places. James Cameron has said that the cost of VFX artists needs to come down, as though it’s the wages of animators, sculptors, riggers and other people essential to the sector that keep costs high. 

In reality, competition between VFX houses has seen wages and working conditions decline among the industry’s artists for years. But Cameron is also on the board of directors at Stability AI, and is therefore among a group of (generally very wealthy) people who think that using generative AI to replace jobs and depress wages further is the key to saving the mainstream film industry. 

Look again at Marvel’s expenditure to date on next year’s Avengers: Doomsday, however. Robert Downey Jr will receive a compensation package of $80m, perhaps even higher, for his role in the upcoming superhero sequel. Its directors, the Russo brothers, are also said to be getting paid $80m to direct Doomsday and its follow-up, Secret Wars.

Avengers: Doomsday therefore ran up a bill of $160m before a frame of footage was shot or anyone at a VFX company turned on a computer. There are rumours that its budget could top out at a record-breaking $1bn, and that it’d need to make $2bn just to break even.

Fifty years after Jaws revolutionised the blockbuster, Hollywood needs to look again at the formula for success. But if it is going to save costs, it needs to start at the top of the food chain, not at the bottom.