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The Drama Of The 2025 Summer Box Office
Scenes from the summer // Image by Kait Cunniff with DALL-E
With Labor Day behind us, the summer movie season — Hollywood’s most lucrative stretch of the year — is officially over. The box office receipts are giving the industry reasons for both optimism and concern.
The Big Picture: Hollywood is still recalibrating after COVID, dual strikes, and the streaming upheaval. The hope is to return to the record-breaking decade of grosses that preceded the 2020 pandemic shutdown. This summer's results, however, are a mixed bag.
Behind The Scenes: The summer 2025 box office pulled in $3.67 billion, yet played out like a sequel to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
Analysts projected a $4 billion summer (like the good ’ole pre-COVID days), but totals fell just short of 2024’s haul.
May started strong with the billion-dollar-grossing Lilo & Stitch and a solid showing from the latest Mission: Impossible… but every weekend after underperformed year-to-date — except July 11–13, when Superman opened.
Still, there were bright spots — overall attendance rose by one million, most studios posted higher grosses than last summer, and 11 films cleared $100 million — showing the wealth was more evenly spread across releases.
Final Tally: The data suggests audiences are showing up, but each film is earning less than it did pre-pandemic. A big reason: international markets have shrunk. Before COVID, blockbusters often made $100–200 million in China alone. Now, $50 million is lucky. Similar declines have hit Vietnam and South Korea, while Russia has vanished entirely from the global equation.
For the first time in years, Hollywood is making more money domestically than abroad. In 2019, eight of the top 10 films earned 60% or more of their revenue internationally. In 2025, only three have done so.
Coming Soon: For now, Hollywood’s strategy seems to be keeping budgets down to maximize returns while leaning into stories that resonate more with Americans. At least, Hollywood can rely on the kids to show up.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.